The Stalin Epigram (24 page)

As for my codefendants, we were never actually introduced. We were thrown together in the basement holding cell an hour or so before the trial got under way. I never knew their names until
Procurator General Vishinsky called them out at the trial.

“Knud Trifimovich Ignatiev.” The little man on my right, wearing a baggy suit with a soiled shirt buttoned up to his neck, with a mustache trimmed exactly like Comrade
Vishinsky’s, stood up. “That’s me, Your Honor,” he said.

Comrade Vishinsky read out the charges against the accused Ignatiev—wrecking, treason, counterrevolutionary activities in violation of Penal Code Article 58. “How is it you
plead?”

“Guilty.”

“Kindly tell the court,” Comrade Vishinsky said, peering at the accused through his horned-rimmed spectacles, his voice oozing contempt, “how a Russian national like yourself
winds up with a name like Knud.”

“My mother was Danish, my father Russian. I was called Knud after my maternal grandfather.”

Comrade Vishinsky turned to address Their Honors the judges. “As you will see, the accused Ignatiev’s connection with Denmark is pertinent to the accusations against him.” He
turned back to the accused, who was clutching the bar to steady himself. “In your capacity as librarian in chief for the greater Moscow district, how many libraries did you direct?”

“In addition to the great Lenin Library and the four university libraries, I was in overall charge of forty-seven neighborhood libraries.”

“In your role as director of all these libraries, am I correct in stating that you were responsible for the destruction of books that were considered to be subversive?”

“That is correct, comrade procurator general.”

“And how were you alerted to the fact that the responsible authorities considered certain books to be subversive and thus must be destroyed?”

“At weekly intervals, I received a typewritten list from the office of the commissar for cultural affairs. On two occasions I received a note from Comrade Stalin himself inquiring why such
and such a book was still available to the general public.”

“Then what happened?”

“Along with a female assistant, I made the rounds of the libraries in the small van allocated to my department and collected the offending volumes. I drove to one of the waste disposal
plants on the outskirts of Moscow and personally supervised the destruction of the offending volumes.”

“They were burned in the incinerators, is that correct?”

“That is correct, comrade procurator general.”

“On the twelfth of March of this year, you were apprehended while supervising the destruction of volumes at the”—the procurator general bent his head to read from the charge
sheet in the folder—“at the Yaroslav District waste station on the Yaroslav Highway. Will you tell the court why?”

“Included in the cartons of books earmarked for destruction were seventeen copies of Lenin’s collected works and eight copies of Stalin’s collected works.”

Comrade Vishinsky came around the procurator general’s bar and approached the box of the accused. “Would you be so kind as to tell the court, Knud Trifimovich Ignatiev, how you came
to be destroying the widely admired texts of Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin.”

“I am a charter member of the backup Trotskyist Paris-based anti-Bolshevik Center. I was following specific orders issued to me by Trotsky’s son, Sedov, during a meeting in
Copenhagen, Denmark, where I had gone, with Party permission, to attend the funeral of my mother’s father, the Knud after whom I am named.”

Comrade Vishinsky glanced again at the charge sheet. “This meeting took place on the fourteenth of February 1934, at three-thirty in the afternoon, at the Hotel Bristol. Is that
correct?”

“No.”

People in the courtroom gasped. Comrade Vishinsky’s mouth fell open. The three judges on the raised platform conferred in undertones. Comrade procurator general checked the charge sheet.
“You have admitted, under interrogation, that you met Trotsky’s son, Sedov, in the Bristol Hotel. Are you retracting your confession, accused Ignatiev?”

“Your Honors, I described my meeting with Sedov in a Copenhagen hotel. I never mentioned the Bristol. That must have been added by the stenographer or the interrogator. I couldn’t
have met Sedov in the Bristol on the fourteenth of February 1934 because the hotel, which I knew well, was demolished in 1917.”

Comrade Vishinsky turned toward Their Honors on the raised platform. “Needless to say, it doesn’t matter in
which
hotel the meeting was held. The important point, which has
been established beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that the accused Ignatiev received his wrecking orders directly from Trotsky’s son, Sedov, in a Copenhagen hotel.” He turned back toward
the accused. “Why did Sedov want you to destroy the texts signed by Lenin and Stalin?”

“I asked him that very question,” Ignatiev testified in a dull voice. “He said that cleansing the libraries of Lenin and Stalin was the first phase of the intricately planned
counterrevolution that would be launched by Trotsky. I happened to have been apprehended before the library wrecking program could swing into full gear. Stalin, along with you, comrade procurator
general, and other members of the Soviet leadership, were to be eliminated, after which we Trotskyists would restore capitalism in Russia.”

There were angry cries from the crowd of
Shame
and
Death is too good for the traitor
. Comrade Vishinsky’s tone turned mild. “Do you, accused Ignatiev, affirm that your
confession is voluntary, that you were not coerced in any manner or form by the interrogators assigned to your case?”

“I do.”

“Do you affirm the accuracy of your voluntary confession?”

“With the exception of the Hotel Bristol, I do.”

“One more thing,” Comrade Vishinsky said. “Be so kind as to tell the court how the members of the backup Trotskyist Paris-based anti-Bolshevik Center were supposed to recognize
each other.”

“The recognition sign was the Eiffel Tower—it might be an Eiffel Tower sticker on a valise or a briefcase, it might be an Eiffel Tower pin in the buttonhole of a lapel, it might be
an actual miniature of the Eiffel Tower set casually on a table or sideboard in someone’s office or apartment.”

Comrade Vishinsky returned to his bar and removed another charge sheet from the folder. “Galina Yegorova,” he called.

The woman sitting between Ignatiev and me got slowly to her feet. I guessed she must have been wearing the dress she had on at the time of her arrest. I say this because, like Ignatiev’s
suit, it was very rumpled, the hem of the long skirt soiled as if it had been sweeping the ground for weeks. In addition the dress had a very un-Soviet low-cut bodice that was an insult to
Bolshevik modesty. If Agrippina had turned up in an outfit like that, much as I love her she would have felt the back of my hand.

“The accused Yegorova, wife of the Red Army commander until recently in charge of a military district in Central Asia, is charged with anti-Soviet slander, treason and counterrevolutionary
activities in violation of Penal Code Article 58. How is it you plead?”

When I heard the procurator general say her name, it hit me that this was the lady who was the talk of the Lubyanka. Prison scuttlebutt talked about a female inmate who was not only a well-known
motion picture actress but a personal friend of Comrade Stalin’s. (I couldn’t help but wonder if he was sitting behind the tinted windows at the back of the courtroom watching her. I
couldn’t help but think that if he was watching her, he would recognize me from the time he shook my hand in the Kremlin.) Something Agrippina once said when the director of our circus was
arrested for skimming off ticket receipts came to mind:
How the mighty have fallen
. Clearly the same was true for the poor lady leaning her weight on the bar next to me to keep from sinking
to her knees. She looked to be about forty going on sixty, if you catch my meaning. The skin on her face was white like a clown’s, her eyes were scared, her breasts were sagging so badly into
her bodice you wanted to turn your head away from embarrassment. She squinted as if she was having trouble focusing on the procurator general and Their Honors the judges. I heard her say, in a
hoarse voice, “Guilty.”

One of the judges called out, “You will have to speak up.”

“I plead guilty to the charges against me,” the lady said in a louder voice.

Again Comrade Vishinsky came out from behind the procurator’s bar and approached the accused. “Galina Yegorova, on or about sixteen March of this year, at a cocktail party
celebrating the completion of your latest motion picture, you were heard to say”—he bent his head to the paper in his hands—“
With all these terrorists loose in Moscow
trying to kill Stalin, it is amazing he is still alive
. Were those your words?”

“They were taken out of context,” she muttered.

“This is your last warning,” the judge said. “Speak up or we will hold you in contempt of this court.”

“The words were taken out of context, Your Honor. It was not my intention to cast doubt on the stories in
Pravda
concerning the terrorists known to be operating in Moscow, or the
trials of terrorists who have admitted trying to assassinate members of the leadership. I was only suggesting that with all these terrorists active in the city, it was
amazing
, as in a
miracle
, that, thanks to the watchfulness of our Chekists, they had not succeeded in assassinating our beloved Josef Vissarionovich.”

On the raised platform, the three judges put their heads together. The lead judge addressed the witness. “Accused Yegorova, it cannot help your case that you refer to our esteemed leader
by his name and patronymic. Outside his intimate circle of colleagues and friends, he is known as Comrade Stalin.”

Yegorova lowered her eyes. “I will not make the same mistake a second time, Your Honor.”

Comrade Vishinsky said, “If it pleases the court, I will offer in evidence the signed confession of Yegorova’s husband, who was arrested on the charge of high treason in January and
has been cooperating with the interrogator since then.” Comrade Vishinsky placed a folder on the table in front of the judges.

“So noted,” the lead judge remarked and he began to leaf through the folder, passing pages to the other judges as he finished skimming them.

“Red Army Commander Yegorov has confessed to being an agent of the backup Trotskyist Paris-based anti-Bolshevik Center,” Comrade Vishinsky continued. “He has admitted
organizing a counterrevolutionary uprising in the Central Asian military district of which he was the commander. He has also implicated his wife, the accused Galina Yegorova, in the plot to
overthrow the existing order and restore capitalism under the leadership of the archtraitor Leon Trotsky.” Comrade procurator general absently polished the lenses of his eyeglasses with the
tip of his tie. “Be so kind as to tell the court what your precise role was in this counterrevolutionary conspiracy.”

“Why don’t you just read it out from my husband’s confession? Better still, why don’t you put my husband on the witness stand and let him describe my role
himself?”

There was a low growl from the audience in response to this arrogant outburst from the witness. Comrade Vishinsky scowled. “Commander Yegorov was so humiliated when his role in the
conspiracy came to light that he attempted to kill himself by hitting his head against the stone wall of his cell. He is currently being treated for a severe concussion in the Lubyanka
clinic.”

“My husband’s confession was extracted under torture—”

Now there was a roar of real outrage from the audience. “Slander,” a woman shrieked.

“Defamation of our Chekists, who are the guardians of the Revolution,” another woman shouted.

The lead judge slammed his gavel down on the table. “Silence!” he roared. He addressed the accused Yegorova. “Is it your claim that your husband’s confession, which we
have before our eyes—dated, bearing the interrogator’s official seal, signed by him and by two witnesses, signed also by the stenographer—was extracted under duress?”

“I am absolutely certain that Commander Yegorov is a loyal Stalinist and was never involved in any counterrevolutionary schemes,” Yegorova declared.

Comrade Vishinsky ran a finger between his starched collar and his neck. “You have admitted, under interrogation, that you served as a messenger for the backup Trotskyist Paris-based
anti-Bolshevik Center. You have admitted that you were contacted by Trotsky’s son, Sedov, in a Berlin hotel when you attended the Berlin film festival in October of last year. Is the court to
understand that you are withdrawing your confession?”

“I maintain my confession. I met Sedov in the Berlin hotel, the name of which slips my mind. He gave me a pack of German filter-tip cigarettes, the brand name of which slips my mind.
Several of the cigarettes, so I was told, contained instructions for counterrevolutionary wrecking activities printed on the inside of the cigarette paper. Acting on Sedov’s instructions, I
crossed the frontier back into the Soviet Union carrying the pack of cigarettes in full view in my leather purse. As I left the hotel room after my meeting with Sedov, he moistened the back of an
Eiffel Tower sticker with his tongue and pasted it onto my purse as a recognition sign. He instructed me to deliver the cigarettes to the person in the central librarian’s office who had a
similar sticker visible on his briefcase. This person, who was to pass on the wrecking instructions to other members of the backup Paris-based Trotskyist anti-Bolshevik Center, turned out to be the
accused Ignatiev. At no time did I deliver the cigarettes and the instructions they contained to my husband or any of his officers or friends in the Central Asian military district. This I most
emphatically deny.”

Comrade Vishinsky tossed his head. “What you are telling the court, accused Yegorova, contradicts your signed confession. You don’t deny that that is your signature on the notarized
confession, which I have already placed in evidence before this court.”