CHAPTER 13—G.P.U. Men in the Cells

LIFE IN THE MASS CELLS DIFFERED FROM LIFE IN THE SMALLER CELLS as life in the capital differs from life’ in the provinces. All the news we obtained in the mass cells was firsthand. Any change in the examination methods was recorded there at once, because when a cell has two hundred and sixty occupants as Cell No. a next to us had, almost every examiner has at least one prisoner in it. The five months I spent in the mass cells in Kholodnaya Gora remain in my memory as by far the most tolerable and interesting phase of my three years of imprisonment.

None of us in the cell knew what they intended to do with us and why we had been taken there. Every day about twenty or thirty prisoners went away “with things,” apparently off to the camps to serve their sentences, but our numbers were maintained by constant new arrivals.

Most of the prisoners were men whose examination was completed. All of them believed that the cell was a reception center for men going off to the camps, and therefore each one reckoned that his turn was near. Thus life in the camps was a favorite topic of discussion and every item of information and every rumor was eagerly listened to. Most of them were wishful thinking, and therefore the general picture was not altogether unpleasant: everyone was employed in the camps according to his trade; the amount of work required of prisoners was not excessive; for the leisure hours there were lectures, theatricals and libraries, etc. For every day on which prisoners performed the amount of work expected of them a day’s sentence was remitted; if the amount was exceeded by 25 per cent or more then two days were remitted. In this way men who had been sentenced to ten years were often freed after two and a half years. The whole fantasy was nothing but the eternal tenacity of man’s hope, but I must confess that I was influenced by the general optimism. In part, the information was accurate, but only in part, and the most important point was that it was true only for criminals, and not for politicals. One thing, however, was quite certain: there was no deliberate sadism in the camps. But the climate and the conditions under which prisoners had to exist meant that men who were not tough went under very rapidly unless they were lucky enough to get some special work.

I remained only a week in Cell No. 1, and then I was removed to Cell No. 4, on the first floor. It was the best cell in Kholodnaya Gora. It had wooden flooring and it was every bit as large as Cell No. 1. Our cell starosta decided that we should all have our own place and keep it. That was fortunate for me, because when he made his decision I had the best place in the cell.

Although conditions were better than in my old cell, they were far from ideal. Our numbers increased to a hundred and sixty and we all had to lie on our sides on the floor in much the same way as I have already described. We were squashed together, but at least we could breathe and sufficient fresh air came through the five open windows. Every evening at about nine o’clock we settled down to sleep. It took us about a quarter of an hour and caused much squabbling. Everybody was talking excitedly to his neighbor and the result was that in that wing, in which there were twelve such mass cells, there arose a confused roar something like a waterfall. Now I realized the meaning of the dull noise we had always heard about this time in the smaller cells.

Once I had settled down I began to take stock of my fellow inmates. One thing struck me at once: there were very few Russians or Ukrainians, but all the minorities in Kharkov were represented; twenty-two national groups in all, including Poles, Jews, Germans, Armenians, Georgians, Letts, Lithuanians, Finns, Assyrians, Chinese, Greeks, Turks, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Koreans, Hungarians, Tartars, Bashkirs and White Russians.

The Armenian colony was the largest and numbered over forty. They formed a compact group, cared for nothing but their own interests and were quite prepared to slit anyone else’s throat. I was brought up in a spirit of enlightened internationalism and I hate any kind of national prejudice. I always tried to be just, but these Armenians made it very difficult. There were very decent individuals among them, and they were almost all amusing and shrewd. But most of them had strong antisocial characteristics. They were swindlers and they did not stop at violence: two characteristics which don’t usually go together. As a national minority they were extremely sensitive and they were firmly convinced that everyone else was trying to take advantage of them. Again and again they revolted against the decisions of our cell starosta and generally made life very difficult.

In the smaller cells each man went up to the hatch and took his own plate of soup. If he found rather more potatoes than usual in his soup that was just his luck and no one could accuse the cell starosta of favoritism, but in a mass cell it was impossible for each prisoner to go to the hatch, take his plate and make his way back to his place safely. During the day we sat on the floor in four long lines, each two lines facing each other for the sake of sociability. At meal times two great boilers were brought in, each holding about seventy quarts. Two assistants of the cell starosta carried them between the lines, halting at convenient points, and doled out the food. The potatoes were at the bottom, so the cell starosta had to keep stirring up the soup with a long-handled ladle. It was hard work for a man weakened by long imprisonment. And it was the Armenians who always made trouble and accused him of unfairness. They insisted noisily that when the soup passed through their ranks the starosta always left the potatoes at the bottom. From time to time things got so bad that we had to elect another starosta. To settle the potato problem we suggested that the Armenians should disperse and sit among the rest of us, but this they refused to do. Whoever was cell starosta, it made no difference, the Armenians remained difficult.

In my corner I organized a mathematics and physics class. The interested prisoners squeezed up together and the wall served as a blackboard, and in this way I was kept occupied from eleven o’clock to one every day. There were quite a number of well-educated men in the cell, including several engineers, and my example caught on. From six o’clock to eight every evening there were scientific lectures. Later someone or other told stories.

Russians are very fond of good stories, and in the end the cell decided that those who told them should be rewarded with an extra ladle of soup for every hour they kept the cell amused.

My knowledge of European literature served me in good stead.

At first I was not among the storytellers, but then someone wanted to hear German stories. I tried my hand first at short stories: Grillparzer’s “Cloister of Sandomir,” Schnitzler’s “Play at Dawn” and so on. Later on I attempted whole novels. The first one was Kellermann’s The Tunnel. With a little experience I found it quite easy to reconstruct a whole novel in this way, and at the same time I learned something about the author’s job. In any novel there are not more than perhaps half a dozen salient facts to be remembered, and all I had to do was to fill up the gaps between the various climaxes. For the most part the gaps were there in order to increase the tension and lead up to the climax. Thus, if you can remember the main points of a novel you rewrite the novel in your mind as you go along. It didn’t matter very much whether my final version adhered closely to the original or not. I often wondered how far removed my versions were, and later on when I came across a volume of Schnitzler’s short stories in Poland, I dictated my version to a friend who took it down in shorthand. Then I compared the two. My versions were very different. Schnitzler must have turned over in his grave, but my friend, although admitting that they were certainly different, thought them beautiful all the same.

We were never bored in the mass cells, and there were always a number of very interesting prisoners, talented artists, scientists, high officials and experienced engineers and industrialists. There were experts in almost every sphere. If anything went wrong we never had to wait for the services of a doctor; there were always several in the cell.

We were all firmly convinced that the great change was not far away. The examiners no longer knocked their prisoners about as brutally as before, there were by no means so many newcomers, and a very important difference, prisoners were no longer called upon to denounce others. Something must already have happened in Moscow.

We all firmly believed that Yezhov was responsible for the excesses of the Great Purge, though, of course, we knew that he was only Stalin’s tool. However, no one ever mentioned that knowledge officially. All the petitions to Stalin were “to open his eyes.” During the course of 1938, many millions of petitions must have poured into his secretariat. We all wrote them. Only six months before it would have been very difficult to obtain the paper and to make sure that a petition was forwarded once it was written, although a G.P.U. order was prominently exposed assuring us of our right to complain or otherwise get into touch with the Prosecutor and the highest organs of the Party and the Soviets. In those days the G.P.U. had quite deliberately sabotaged the prisoners’ rights. As late as October we had been compelled to fight persistently for permission to write. One prisoner had knocked on the cell door continuously, and every time the warder arrived he asked for paper. Finally the warder brought the commandant of the wing along. The prisoner repeated his request.

“You must ask the examiner.”

“But I haven’t been called out for interrogation for over three months, Citizen Commandant.”

“Be patient. Your turn will come.”

“But I want to write now. There’s nothing in the regulations which says I must first get the examiner’s permission. I have been falsely imprisoned. One day I shall be sent off to a camp, and then it will be too late to write. I want to complain to Comrade Stalin and to Comrade Vishinsky.”

“I can’t give you any paper.”

The prisoner managed to get hold of a very small piece of soiled and crumpled-up paper which he flattened out as best he could, and on it he wrote a petition to Stalin. When he had finished he gave it to the warder to forward. A few minutes later the commandant appeared again.

“Are you mad? You want to send this dirty scrap of paper to Comrade Stalin! Where did you get the pencil from?”

“I had a stump of pencil but I’ve lost it since in the yard.”

The commandant ordered a general search of all the prisoners. It was a long job, but at last the stump of pencil was found. The warder destroyed the “petition.” But the prisoner refused to give in. He tore a piece off his shirt, took a small splinter of wood and scratched his arm, then with the blood he wrote another appeal to Stalin on the tail of his shirt and handed this to the warder. The angry commandant appeared again.

“That’s an anti-Soviet demonstration,” he bellowed. “If I report that you can be shot for it.”

“Please forward my letter to Stalin, Citizen Commandant. I’m quite prepared to be shot rather than surrender my constitutional rights.”

This time the commandant sent the strange petition to the G.P.U. The result was astonishing. A few days later the prison governor came to us and announced:

“Cell Number 4 has the right to set out petitions every Thursday. Any prisoner wishing to do so must report to the warder first thing in the morning. No writing is to be done in the cell itself, but in the writing room on the fourth floor. Paper and pens will be issued there.”

That was the first official sign of the coming change.

For months the lavochka had sold nothing but bacon and sugar, but those prisoners who had little money to buy such expensive things wanted bread, herrings and other cheaper foodstuffs. At one time we should never have dared to utter such demands, but on one occasion when a medical commission visited us one of the prisoners mentioned the matter. Two days later we were led into the lavochka and there was everything—well, everything within reason—the heart of a G.P.U. prisoner desires. Unfortunately, I had no more money. I had used my last thirty rubles at the beginning of November, because I had not expected to be in prison beyond the end of 1938. It made a big difference, and now I was almost always hungry. My friends in the cell helped me and I earned a certain amount by my stories, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy my hunger.

The prison diet was scientifically calculated. If a prisoner lay around all day and made no unnecessary movements, then it was just about enough to keep him alive. The prisoners grew thin (I lost about forty-four pounds in weight while I was in prison) but they did not die. Now that I no longer had any money to supplement my prison rations I had to husband my strength carefully. In the beginning, when there was enough room in the cell, I had always done physical exercises every day. I no longer made any attempt to do so, and when I went out to exercise I sat in a corner of the yard and contented myself with breathing in the fresh air and looking at the sky. The warders all knew that I was by far the oldest inhabitant, and nowhere does seniority count so much as in prison. I never allowed myself to be elected starosta. The work was too heavy, and, in addition, I didn’t want trouble with the Armenians. However, I had a good deal of influence in the cell discussions. At every succeeding crisis I proposed that an Armenian should be elected starosta, but the Armenians were wily enough to realize that it was a trap and they would never agree.

They disliked me intensely, and they were particularly indignant about my lectures, because their lack of education prevented them from taking part. I then persuaded a friendly economist to hold popular lectures on political economy, but again the Armenians refused to join in. They were always thinking up some new intrigue. Gevondi, who had grown to like me, was constantly squabbling with them on my account, and in the end he broke away from the group altogether and came over to take a place near me. For the Armenians that was about the equivalent of a resignation from the Party—something quite fantastic and unprecedented.

In our cell there were two colonels and a number of other officers, including a little Jewish captain who was so thin and unmilitary in appearance that it was astonishing that he ever got into the Army at all. However, he was a very capable military engineer. This Yakov Gorlin was a fascinating personality, with sad eyes, beautiful hands and supple movements. He was really a naïve man, which is an unusual thing for a Jew. Talking to him was like talking to an intelligent child who had lost his way in the woods.

He had been brought up on a small estate in the Ukraine, whose owner was a minor aristocrat and a high official. Gorlin’s father was odd-job man about the place, and for this he was paid in kind and allowed to live in the servants’ quarters. Old Gorlin died when Yakov was still young, but his mother was allowed to stay on with her two children, who grew up as playmates of the landowner’s two children. Despite social and national differences, a deep attachment developed between Shura, the daughter of the place, and Yakov, but in the end they were separated by the outbreak of the revolution. Yakov went to Latvia, so that there was then a frontier between him and his old home. As a student he joined a Communist group and at the age of twenty-five he fled to the Soviet Union. He had no idea whether Shura was alive or dead, but he had never ceased to love her. He entered a military academy and became an officer, still trying to find his Shura. In the end he found her, but she was already married, to a Communist. Her two parents had both been killed. The marriage was unhappy, and it was not long before Yakov was more passionately in love with the beautiful girl than ever. But there was no happy end to the story; the girl committed suicide by taking poison.

The Armenians made life difficult for Yakov. They jeered at his appearance and they would try to trip him up when he passed them to come over to me. Fortunately, a German prisoner named Wolf invariably took his part, and as Wolf was as strong as a horse the Armenians had a certain respect for him, but once when they succeeded in tripping Yakov and he hit back they fell on him with one accord. Wolf immediately rushed to the rescue and did great execution among them, but about twenty of them dragged him down.

I, two Bulgarians and another German went to his assistance. A battle royal ensued, and the noise was terrific. The warder came running up, opened the cell door and stood there helplessly looking on. By this time all the nations were involved. Nerves had been frayed for a long time and this was a welcome opportunity to let off steam. In the end the governor himself arrived. At once the Armenians declared that I had provoked all the trouble in order to incite the various groups against each other.

I waited until they had finished, then I attempted to explain matters, but by this time the governor was so angry that he was not prepared to listen.

“Get your things together,” he said to me, and left the cell.

The whole cell, apart from the Armenians, was indignant. Gevondi cursed his compatriots furiously.

“You dirty lot of dogs,” he declared, “I’m ashamed to have grown up with you. You’re in the same trouble as everybody else and yet you want to make everybody’s trouble worse. You’ll all finish up badly, and not a soul will help you, and it’ll serve you right.”

Among the Armenians was another white raven and he too took my side. However, I had to pack up my things, and I said good-by with a heavy heart to all my friends. Then I sat down and waited. Three hours passed before anything happened and then the governor returned.

“Everyone pack,” he ordered. “You’re all leaving.”

Everyone was furious with the Armenians. Not only should we lose the best cell in the prison but if we were now distributed among the other cells we should all get the worst places in them. Almost fifty prisoners had left for the camps without being replaced and we had had more room than at first.

Ten minutes later warders arrived and we were all taken out and put into two other cells. Friends did their best to remain together. My nice place in the corner was gone. In the new cell my place was near the “Parasha,” and I was faced with the prospect of gradually working my way up to better quarters by sheer dint of staying longer than anyone else.

My new cell was also full of national minorities. My immediate neighbors were two young Chinese, both of them about twenty. They were both charming lads, modest, helpful and unusually clean. They washed for half the cell with the aid of a little soap and a soup plate. They would wash away steadily for fourteen hours a day and somehow, working with the index finger and the thumb of each hand, they managed to get shirts and towels beautifully clean. It was a great boon to us. For over a year now permission to send dirty linen outside to he washed had been withdrawn. There was a laundry in the prison but no one was willing to use it because you never got the same things back. Anything any good was always stolen. In addition there was always the very real danger of losing everything if a prisoner happened to be sent away to a camp before his washing came back. In camp the possession of warm clothing and linen was a primary condition for survival.

For their hard work on behalf of the rest of us the two Chinese were given extra food. The washing itself was an illegal activity. Formerly we had been allowed to wash our own things when we went to have a bath, but now that was forbidden too.

These two Chinese came from South China. There were one or two other Chinese in the cell, but as they came from Manchuria the two groups had to speak Russian to make themselves understood.

Very few prisoners were now being taken out for interrogation and we were practically cut off from the brikhalovka. Rumors spread which we were unable to check; for instance, there was a report that the G.P.U. was already collecting material against Kaganovitch, the most powerful man in the Politburo after Stalin, and that Bondarenko, who was in charge of the Kharkov tractor works, had been forced to make compromising statements against him. However, several members of the Politburo had protested and demanded the resignation of Yezhov, who was still running amok like a rogue elephant. Startled by the protests of his fellow members of the Politburo, Stalin, it appeared, was preparing to stop him, and Beria had already been seconded to the G.P.U.

The examiners certainly no longer beat prisoners so frequently and the “conveyer” had become a rarity. However, a new form of torture had been introduced. It consisted of shutting a man up in a cupboard and leaving him standing for forty-eight hours. Our two Chinese were constantly being taken out for interrogation. They were accused of espionage. They didn’t mind that, but the examiner insisted that they were spies for Japan, and as patriotic Chinese they were holding out. The idea of their being spies of any sort was ridiculous. They came of poor peasant stock and they had earned a frugal living by taking in washing. One morning they came back beaming: the examiner had allowed them to be spies for China instead of Japan. They were quite happy at the idea of having been spies for their own country, but they wanted nothing to do with their archenemy Japan. They explained their attitude to me: Japan and Russia were bitter enemies, and they constantly clashed. But Russia and China were closely allied. And they entwined their fingers to demonstrate the indissoluble bond between the two great peoples.

There was another very interesting Chinese in our cell. He had traveled from town to town as a conjuror, setting up his booth in the market places. His equipment was worth about a hundred thousand rubles, so he counted as a bourgeois. In addition of course he was a private entrepreneur. On one occasion I wanted to speak to him, but I found it impossible to pronounce his name, and he sat at the other end of the cell, so I called over.

“Hey, Chinaman. Come here. I want to speak to you.”

Next to me sat an imprisoned G.P.U. officer named Eingorn. Indignantly he shook my arm.

“Shut up,” he snapped. “How dare you shout that at him? He’s got a name just as you have, hasn’t he?”

“Well, yes, but I can’t pronounce it, and I’m not trying to insult him.”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but you are. How would you like it if someone shouted at you from one end of the cell to the other, ‘Hey, Jew, come over here!’?”

That made me think, but I defended myself.

“It’s not the same thing at all. The word ‘Jew’ has gradually acquired an insulting tone because we’re an oppressed minority and naturally rather sensitive. The Chinese aren’t.”

“You’re quite wrong, Alexander Semyonovitch. They certainly are, and not only abroad either. In their own country they’re looked down upon by Europeans.”

I had to admit that he was right. The incident showed me how thoughtlessly we often wound the national susceptibilities of other people. It also struck me that a prison cell was quite the right place for a G.P.U. man with such delicate feelings.

“Yes, I think you’re right,” I admitted. “And yet you Russians are funny. You are brought up in the spirit of internationalism, and you talk about Lenin’s nationality policy, and yet at the same time you lock up all your national minorities.”

“Don’t you think there are any organizations among them, Alexander Semyonovitch?”

“Well, I’ve been here for two years now and I haven’t noticed one yet. And I don’t believe you have either. Now honestly, Eingorn, tell me, when you were an examiner did you ever find traces of a counterrevolutionary organization?”

Eingorn refused to answer—whether out of caution, discipline or shame, I don’t know.

During the past six months we had noticed that quite a lot of G.P.U. men had been arrested. The prisoners who came back from the brikhalovka had told us about it, but in the smaller cells in which I had spent most of my time in the Kholodnaya Gora I had not met any.

The most interesting among them was a man named Braude. I had seen him about eighteen months before with Ryeznikov. In November, 1938, he had been arrested himself, and he came into our cell, where one of the prisoners whom he had beaten up immediately attacked him. Other prisoners intervened and dragged them apart. Later on I changed my place and sat next to him. He was reddish blond in color, small but powerfully built.

“Why did you hit that prisoner?” I asked. “Did you really think he was a spy?”

“I’m not an idiot. Of course I didn’t.”

‘Well, why did you do it, then?”

He made no answer and I repeated the question.

“I didn’t want to come here before I had to,” he said finally. “It’s not as agreeable as all that here.”

“Did you hit him under orders?”

“Don’t be silly. No one could possibly give such an order. It’s strictly against the law to maltreat prisoners.”

“Well, then, I don’t understand why you did. What would have happened if you hadn’t?”

“He wouldn’t have confessed.”

“Why did you want him to confess when you knew perfectly well he wasn’t a spy?”

“I didn’t want him to; others wanted him to. In any case, you’re too inquisitive. Leave me in peace.”

I returned to the subject later.

“What would have happened to you if he hadn’t confessed?”

“Nothing in particular. I should have written a report saying that the result of the examination was negative and that the prisoner appeared to be innocent.”

“And what would have happened then?”

“He would have been released.”

‘Well, why didn’t you report like that?”

“Who’s he in particular? I had twenty others like him, and not a spy among them.”

“Supposing you had reported that they were all innocent, would anything have happened to you?”

He laughed.

“It would never have got so far. The first man would probably have been released, but the second case would have been handed over to another examiner for review. The third time I should have been put on the carpet. And the fourth time I should have been arrested and charged with sabotage. But I couldn’t get any of them to confess without treating them rough. For over a year we had had no time for a ‘conveyer.’”

“But you said yourself that it was strictly prohibited to ill-treat prisoners, so why did you do it?”

He refused to answer. I don’t think he was ashamed of himself; it was mere caution. However, we gradually became friends, and after a while I resumed my probing.

“Was it really forbidden to strike prisoners?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now tell me one thing, Braude: the G.P.U. examiners all began to hit their prisoners at the same time. It was either August 17th or 18th. And it started everywhere at once: from Arkhangelsk to Odessa and from Vladivostok to the Polish frontier. How could that have come about without a definite order from a central point? Or isn’t it true? Were all the prisoners who came from other towns telling lies?”

“No. It’s true enough. But there was no order to start it.”

“Well, then, tell me how it was possible. How could all the examiners up and down the country all start beating their prisoners on a certain day without there being some sort of agreement or understanding between them?”

“You ask too many questions. I daren’t talk. I’m not so free as you are. It’s worse for us than for you in any case.”

“Now listen, Braude: you know I’m not an agent provocateur. You know that better than anyone else. But I’ve been imprisoned here now for two years and I don’t understand what’s going on around me. I want to understand and you can help me.”

“I’ll talk to you at night.”

It was an exciting night for me. Braude began to talk a little more freely, but he was unwilling to call a spade a spade. He wanted to make only hints and leave me to guess the rest, but I wanted plain facts and I exploited my advantage to the full. I examined him as closely as any prosecuting counsel. Here was an opportunity of lifting at least a corner of the veil of secrecy which had hidden things from my sight for two years, and I was unwilling to spare him. He was to some extent dependent on me, because no one else was willing to talk to him or show him any comradeship.

“Now, how was that with the beatings: did you get an order or not?”

“There was no written order. It came about differently.”

“Well, how did it come about?”

“Between Stalin and me there are only two people. Do you understand now?”

I got a shock.

“Who are you, then, and what are you?”

“Nothing in particular, just a Lieutenant of the Security Service.”

“Well, how does it come about, then, that your relations with Stalin are that close?”

“Think it over. How was it with you? Who was your superior administratively?”

“It was Bukharin at first, then Armand and then Piatakov.”

“Then you were closer to Stalin than I was. Both Bukharin and Piatakov had direct contact with Stalin. But if you take the last worker in the Soviet Union, there are never more than three persons between him and Stalin, either through the Party or the administration. A worker usually knows the director of his works. The factory director knows the chairman of the Chief Administration and he knows the People’s Commissar. And the Commissar is in direct touch with Stalin. It’s the same in the Party. The ordinary rank-and-file Communist is in direct touch with his district secretary, and all the district secretaries receive their orders from the Area Committee. And in many cases the area secretaries are in direct touch with Stalin. Others have to go via the Vice-Secretary of the Central Committee in Moscow. And so you see there are never more than three people between the simplest people in the towns and Stalin.”

I thought the matter over. It was quite true. It was astonishing how few intermediate links there were between the masses and the center of all power.

“Yes, I see what you mean, but what has it got to do with our problem: was there an order to start beating up prisoners or was there not?”

“Must I say everything to you in words of not more than two syllables, Alexander Semyonovitch? Can’t you think things out for yourself?”

“I don’t want to form theories; I want to know.”

“How long have you been in Russia?”

“Eight years, but I’ve never had anything to do with such matters.”

“So much the worse for you. You might very well have been arrested much earlier. We don’t talk about such things openly in Russia. You drop hints and say things in a roundabout fashion, and the other fellow draws his own conclusions. That was the way certain instructions were passed on to us.”

“Explain it all to me clearly from beginning to end. Please.”

“Right. Now, at least once a week I saw the head of the Kharkov N.K.V.D. and he went to Moscow at least once every two months to see Yezhov. The heads of all the districts meet in Moscow to receive instructions from the Commissar, namely Yezhov. They were also in touch with him on a direct line if they wanted to speak to him about anything in between their meetings. Yezhov, of course, was in constant touch with Stalin. Now you see what I mean when I say that there were only two men between me and Stalin? If an idea of his came to me along this channel then I had to carry it out.”

“Exactly how did it come about with the beatings?”

“That I can’t exactly tell you. I wasn’t there when Stalin and Yezhov discussed it, but I can imagine how it happened. So can you without forcing me to enter into a highly dangerous discussion. What are you, by the way?”

“I’m a physicist.”

“I don’t mean what your profession is. I want to know what organization you belong to here.”

“I don’t belong to any organization.”

“Well, yes, I know there aren’t any organizations, but what are you accused of?”

“I’m supposed to be a Bukharinist.”

“All right, now imagine that one day Stalin calls Yezhov and suggests that inquiries ought to be instituted to discover whether any connections exist between the former followers of Bukharin and the German Gestapo. Yezhov immediately summons all the district chiefs and says: ‘We must uncover the connections between the Bukharinists and the German Gestapo.’ Not quite what Stalin said; just a little alteration. But you can see what a lot it means. In all probability Stalin reckoned in the first place that Yezhov would hot up his instructions before passing them on. Right, now all the district chiefs go back and call us together. There’s no written order, but the instructions sound something like this: ‘We must take the most energetic measures possible to uncover the connections between the Bukharinists and the German Gestapo.’ It is left to us to imagine what he means by ‘the most energetic measures.’ Now, not one of you would be prepared to admit that he was an agent of the Gestapo until he was beaten black and blue first. One of the examiners finds he’s not making any progress in his efforts ‘to uncover the connections between the Bukharinists and the German Gestapo’ and so he begins to get rough. And that’s how it started. Whether the first one to start had direct instructions from his chief, I don’t know. I certainly didn’t receive any, but I and the others saw that when the beatings started the head didn’t protest and say it was against the law, and as we couldn’t get our confessions any other way we all joined in. As long as we didn’t beat anyone to death it was all right. It all started in the second half of August. Naturally, you and other outsiders think there must have been a written order from above, but there wasn’t. All the beatings will have ceased within a couple of months from now at the outside. And there won’t be any order, because that would be admitting that the N.K.V.D. beats up its prisoners, and that would never do.”

“Whom did you first start arresting as Bukharinists?”

‘We had lists of the former members of the opposition. With the Trotskyists it was easy; they came into the open in 1926 and 1927, and so, of course, they were on our lists. We arrested them all in 1936 and put pressure on them to make them tell us the names of others. It was more difficult with the Bukharinists. They had been more careful but quite a lot of people protested against the Party policy at the time of the collectivization, particularly when the famine started. Everything they said was noted down, and they all counted as Bukharinists for us. We arrested them all, and what happened after that you can imagine. They capitulated and named everyone who sympathized with them. Every new man we arrest gives us other men to be arrested, and so it goes on, the snowball system. But it will stop soon.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“Why are you so positive?”

“Well, there have been many reasons for at least six months, but recently things have happened which I had been expecting for a long time, and that for me were a sign that the end must be near.”

“What, for example?”

“They’ve started to arrest us. Things have already gone so far that half the urban populations are down in our lists for something or other. They can’t all be arrested, and there’s no particular reason to take one rather than the other. Formerly people belonged to this, that or the other category of persons to be liquidated; for example, national minority groups, former members of the opposition, Old Bolsheviki and former Red partisans. They’ve all been attended to for a year or more now. And if we started to arrest all the people who’ve been denounced by those we’ve already arrested, the towns would be depopulated. They realize that up above, and now they’re beginning to arrest us. We’re the last apparatus to catch it. I’ve known all along that it would come, and now it has come. It’s the beginning of the end.”

It had not been easy to get him to speak so freely, and I listened with intense interest. He was a strange man. He felt not the slightest remorse for what he had done. For him everything that had happened was something automatic. As he said, the wheels can’t refuse to turn when the motor starts up. In his opinion the cause of all the trouble lay back fifteen years, when he was still a youngster. “If certain people had been arrested in 1924 after the death of Lenin, none of us need be here now. And there weren’t more than half a dozen then. Now nine million people have been arrested on account of that omission.” For himself he was fatalistic; he was perfectly certain that he would be shot. But what he said raised my hopes very high indeed and filled me with a feeling of jubilation. Things would soon improve, and freedom seemed very close at hand.

Everything that happened after this I interpreted in the light of what he had said. For instance, one day we were all photographed and had our fingerprints taken. Aha! I said, they are going to make out passes for us before we are released. On another occasion we all had to go to the dentist. Up to then no one had bothered about the condition of our teeth. Now because we were soon going to be released they were to be put in order. And then there were minor alleviations of the prison regime which all seemed to point in the same direction.

The life in our cell was intellectually interesting but physically very cramped. If someone wanted to go to the “Parasha” at night he had to pick his way carefully over twenty recumbent men. We had to lie on our sides so close together that no one could have put a hand between us. The man who had to attend to his natural needs had to crawl on all fours. And when it got cold in December and we were all covered up the journey was a dreadful business. One was constantly treading on sleeping men, and they would wake up irritably and curse him. Sometimes this led to fights which woke up the whole cell. Finally things got so bad that something or other had to be done about it. We decided to ask the night warder to wake the whole cell every two hours. Those who wanted to use the “Parasha” could then do so, and at the order of our starosta we all turned over and lay with our faces in the opposite direction. In this way we settled two problems at once, because it was impossible to lie on one’s side on the hard floor for more than about two hours at a time without developing aches and pains.

About this time I fell ill. My teeth became loose and very painful abscesses began to form on my lower body. I could no longer lie on my side and the starosta arranged for me to have a little more room so that I could lie on my back. Our starosta was a young Greek, a captain in the Red Army, and he looked after our interests with great conscientiousness. He spoke to the doctor, but apparently the sick bay was full. My condition worsened so I went on hunger strike, and immediately room was found for me. It reminded me of our hunger strike which had failed six months before. This time six hours had been enough to win a victory.

In the sick bay there were a lot of criminal prisoners, including some who had come back from the camps. Through talking to them I learned something about the life there. There were also a number of men who belonged to a queer sect called “The Nameless” or “The Slaves of God.” They came from somewhere in the west, from near Shepetovka, I believe. Their religious views made them unwilling to take family names. In Tsarist days and in the first years of the revolution they had been left in peace as harmless. However, in 1933 the system of domestic passports was introduced, and for a passport you need a family name, so the Soviet authorities demanded that they should adopt names. They refused. For them all evil began with naming. The Devil had a name. God had no name. All they used was a Christian name preceded by the general appellation “Slave of God.” There were two of these sectarians in the sick bay while I was there: “Slave of God Ivan” and “Slave of God Yosip.” They were mildmannered men of benevolent character, but like all their fellows they categorically refused to adopt family names. In the end the local district Soviet had issued each of them with a passport made out in a name chosen by the authorities. The obstinate “Slaves of God” replied by destroying the passports. When the Great Purge came they were all arrested. Some of them had already fled to the towns, to Kharkov and Kiev, but as they still refused to adopt family names there it was very easy for the G.P.U. to find them. In prison they refused to take any notice of orders given to them in the names the authorities had invented for them, and the warders had to call them “Slave of God Ivan” or “Slave of God Yosip” and so on, if they hoped for any attention.

There were also quite a number of so-called bezprizhornye in the sick bay. These were children who had been orphaned and become waifs and strays. The G.P.U. picked them up on the streets. Some of them were sent to rehabilitation and educational training centers, but most of them landed in prison and in the prison camps. A new law had been promulgated on April 7, 1935, permitting the execution of children over the age of twelve, and it was often used by the G.P.U. against these bezprizhornye. There was a nine-year-old boy in my ward, but he really looked very much younger, though not in his face, which was that of a wrinkled old man. He had specialized in stealing bicycles. How he was ever able to reach the pedals with his short legs is a mystery to me. He sang grossly indecent songs with gusto, and he defended what he considered to be his rights with great vigor. It was even dangerous to fall out with him.

During my stay in the sick bay I learned how to get along with criminals. To stand on your rights is quite hopeless, and it is absolutely impossible to prevent theft—unless you make common cause with them against the politicals. However, they have their own code of honor and once they have been bought off, the stealing stops. In prison they were not a danger, because they enjoyed no special privileges. Apart from their presence in the sick bay they were usually kept strictly isolated from the politicals. They were the only ones who were allowed to take part in the administration of the prison, and they worked in the kitchen and in the baths.

Most of the criminals who had been in the camps looked quite well, and according to them it was much better there than in prison. For one thing, the food was better, and for another you could earn money and buy food to supplement the rations. In some of the camps, it appeared, there really were movies and theaters, and prisoners were even employed at their own jobs. On the whole we obtained a reasonably favorable picture of our future lives in the big camps. Perhaps that was the intention of the G.P.U. when it permitted contact between these men and the politicals. When, about a year later, I came into contact with German politicals who had been in the camps their version was very much less rosy.

On his rounds the prison doctor really treated me with care and attention and gave me quite a lot of his time. That was another thing which would have been impossible six months earlier. It was another indication that things had changed to some extent.

While I was in the sick bay a sad piece of news reached me. A man whom I had greatly liked and respected, Vladimir Josipovitch Dubrovsky, the Director of the Communal Bank in Kharkov, had suffered a heart attack at his first interrogation and died. I had had a great deal to do with him outside. The credits granted us for the building of one research plant had come through his bank. The control of bank credits was very strict. It was the duty of the bank not merely to hold the funds for us but to see that they were subsequently usefully expended and that the amount granted was not exceeded. If the banks had worked strictly according to rule all building operations would have come to a standstill. Dubrovsky was not only a Communist but also a highly intelligent man, and the intentions of the law meant more to him than the letter. He always found a way out of our difficulties.

The following incident was typical. Our pumping station, on which the punctual starting up of the whole station depended, was finished except that the pumps needed caulking material, which cost a mere nothing—a few hundred rubles. It was easy enough to obtain on the free market, but the law forbade us to buy anything from that source. We had to wait until the People’s Commissariat granted our quota. If the factories in question fulfilled their production plans, and if we were lucky, we should then be able to buy the material at State-fixed “hard” prices. On the free market the prices were several times higher.

In the autumn of 1936 when we wanted to start up the pumping station, our quota of caulking material was promised only for the second quarter of 1937. That six months’ delay meant a tremendous loss for the State, but the bank was not prepared to let us have the few hundred rubles we needed to buy the stuff on the free market, where all transactions were in cash. The bank provided me with cash only for two purposes: for paying wages and for meeting the expenses of representatives who had to go to Moscow, etc. All other expenses were met by transfer. The amount in question was ridiculously small and my budget ran into millions, but the bank official steadfastly refused to let me have the four hundred rubles I required. I asked to see the Director.

Dubrovsky received me in a very friendly, almost a fatherly fashion. He was anything but a bureaucrat, and I explained the difficulty.

“Alexander Semyonovitch,” he then began, “I’ve always told you that you’ll end up in prison if you have anything to do with building in our country. Everyone who has anything to do with building ends up there ultimately. Either they break the law or the building work has to stop. It’s difficult for them to find the golden mean: a little law-breaking and a lot of building. Most of them do the contrary: a lot of law-breaking and very little building.”

“But what am I to do, Comrade Dubrovsky? If I can’t get hold of the four hundred rubles I need, the pumps can’t start up. The losses in that case stand in no relation to the few hundred rubles.”

“Well, I can’t give you any cash, but I can give you a tip. Have you got a good Snabshenez?{13} And has he earned a premium?”

“I’ve got several,” I replied. “Now there’s Frumkin in particular. He’s a good man and he’s never had a premium. I was thinking of giving him one.”

“How much were you going to give him?”

“Six hundred rubles, a month’s wages.”

“Give him nine hundred rubles. The balance you’ll get from me. I can’t let you have any cash for purchases on the free market, but if the material bought that way costs more than in the State price lists I’ll close my eyes to it. I know it costs more that way, but I don’t want to know. You understand? You bring me the bill made out at State prices,’ and your Snabshenez will pay the balance out of the surplus on his premium. We’ll both be breaking the law, but only half each.”

I thanked him and he patted me on the shoulder:

“Alexander Semyonovitch, it won’t help you in the least: you’ll end up in prison just the same. But at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve carried a good job through to the end. You must invite me to the opening of the station. I’d like to see what we’re getting for all that money.”

I promised to do so, but I was unable to keep my promise. Shortly before the opening I was arrested—not for having exceeded my budget and not for bad work on the job, but for “having plotted to kill Stalin and Voroshilov” with the object of “restoring capitalism.”

Dubrovsky’s turn came too. He was already an old man and he had often been honored. During the civil war, when he was in his forties, he had led a group of Red Partisans. He went to prison with all the other Red Partisans. Despite everything that had gone before he was not morally prepared for what happened to him. When the examiner denounced him as an agent of the Gestapo at his first interrogation the indignant old man, who was no longer in very good health, collapsed and died of heart failure.

I remained in the sick bay for two weeks. When I returned to the cell the general conviction that the great change was very near had become a certainty. All interrogations had ceased and the whole cell was waiting in feverish excitement for what was to come next.