The next morning I presented myself at the G.P.U. This time my propusk was not ready and I had first to telephone to Polevedsky. He received me angrily.
“What have you been up to?” he demanded at once. “Who said you could talk to Leipunsky? You don’t seem to realize whom you’re dealing with.”
“I’m sorry, Citizen Examiner. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I just couldn’t keep the matter to myself any longer. I just couldn’t stand it.”
“So you just couldn’t stand it, eh? Believe me, you’ll have to stand a good deal more than that before we’re through with you.”
He seemed very much annoyed and I remained silent. He went on upbraiding and threatening me for a while, and then he grew calmer.
“I can’t waste any more of my time on you, Accused Weissberg. Make your decision right now: have you decided to capitulate or not?”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Have you decided to abandon your struggle against the Soviet power, that’s what I mean.”
“I never have opposed the Soviet power.”
“Are you prepared to admit your crimes, to end your conspiratorial work and to give us the names of your accomplices?”
“Citizen Examiner, I can only say again that I have never done anything of the sort.”
“Give us the details of the counterrevolutionary organization you have built up.”
“Citizen Examiner, it’s no use my saying another word.”
“Is that your last word?”
“It is.”
“Then come with me.”
I followed him out and he locked the door behind him as usual. I was perfectly certain that my arrest was imminent. We found Captain Azak sitting at his desk and looking very grim.
“Well, Citizen Lieutenant,” he said to Polevedsky, “has the accused confessed?”
“No, Citizen Captain. Now he refuses to say anything at all.” Captain Azak looked at me for a moment or two, and then said slowly:
“Alexander Semyonovitch, have you taken leave of your senses? You want to go on fighting against us?”
“Citizen Captain, the last thing in the world I want to do is to fight against the Soviet power, but I am unable to make confessions in defiance of the facts.”
“We don’t want you to. We don’t want falsehoods, but the truth.” “I’ve told you the truth. There is nothing in my life which could remotely be construed into a crime against the Soviet Union.”
“Do you think we should have called you here if we were not convinced of the contrary?”
“No, I don’t, but you’re in error; someone has deceived you. Tell me what you have against me and I shall be able to refute it.”
“It’s not your business to tell us what methods of investigation we should adopt. Here”—and he tapped a fat dossier on his desk—”is a whole pile of material against you. It dates from the moment you arrived in’ the Soviet Union. We have kept you under surveillance, not only while here but also while you were abroad. We have uncovered all your connections, and now we have had enough.”
I had to make an effort not to say: “Very well, if you know so much why don’t you arrest me and bring me to trial?”
“Alexander Semyonovitch, do you really think you can still save your organization? Well, you can’t. We have everything under control. It’s not a question of saving your accomplices now; it’s a question of saving yourself. We’re giving you a chance to do just that. If you’re wise you’ll take it.”
“Citizen Captain, I can only say again that I have never at any time done any of the things you mention.”
“Leave me alone with the accused, Citizen Lieutenant.”
Polevedsky went out. Captain Azak rested his chin in one hand and began again in an almost friendly tone.
“Alexander Semyonovitch, have you read the reports of the trial of Piatakov, Radek, Muralov and their accomplices?”
“Yes.”
“You know the past history of these people; you know what sort of men they were?”
“I think I know the history of the revolution fairly well, and I know the past of all the accused who played any role in it.”
“You didn’t fail to notice, I suppose, that all the accused, without exception, capitulated and confessed their crimes?”
I preferred to say nothing.
“Alexander Semyonovitch,” he went on, “among them were men of great physical and moral courage. But they all gave way. Take the case of Muralov, for example. He held out for eight months under examination. But he broke down in the end.”
I still said nothing.
“Do you think you are stronger than Muralov, Alexander Semyonovitch?”
I recalled Trotsky’s autobiography and an incident he describes from the year 1906 in connection with Muralov:
“It is from that time that my unshakable friendship, both in war and in politics, with Muralov dates. I must say at least a few words about Muralov here. He is an old Bolshevist who fought in Moscow during the revolution of 1905. In 1906 at Serpuchovo near Moscow Muralov found himself in the midst of a pogrom being carried out by the Black Hundreds, under police protection as usual. Muralov is a magnificent giant of a man whose fearlessness is matched by a great-hearted goodness. Together with a number of other Left-wingers he found himself in a ring of enemies surrounding the building of the Semstvo. With a revolver in his hand Muralov stalked out of the building and advanced coolly towards the mob, which gave way before him. But an aggressive group of Black Hundreds barred his way. The droshky drivers began to boo. ‘Stand back!’ ordered the giant with raised revolver as he still advanced. They sprang at him, but he killed one man and wounded another. The mob pressed back. Without increasing his pace Muralov sheered through their ranks like an icebreaker and made his way on foot in the direction of Moscow. The proceedings against him lasted for more than two years, but in the end, and despite the furious opposition of the Reaction, he was acquitted.”
I stared impassively over Azak’s head at the portrait of Dzherzhinsky on the wall as I thought of this episode.
“Alexander Semyonovitch, Muralov was once a revolutionary and one of the most courageous fighters we had. He had been a soldier all his life and during the civil war he was commander of the Moscow military district. Do you think you are stronger than he was?”
I looked at Azak.
“Tell me, Citizen Captain, how is it possible that an old revolutionary should raise his hand against his own country, against the revolution, against the working class and against socialism?”
“Alexander Semyonovitch, the revolution uses up men as an acid eats away all softness. The least conflict with the Party, the least deviation necessarily leads to crime. And the class enemy pushes his way into the space which opens up between our Party and the man who deviates from the general line. A man is either for us or against us. There is no middle way. The former Trotskyists have learned that now.”
“Citizen Captain, you may well be right, but it still doesn’t apply to me. My political activity in the Soviet Union has been limited to reading the newspapers. All my energies have been concentrated on my work.”
“Now that’s just where you’re not telling the truth, Citizen Accused. Your work was a cloak for your counterrevolutionary activity.” “There’s really nothing more I can say.”
“We shall force you to speak. Believe me, if we found ways and means of unmasking men like Piatakov, Muralov and Radek we shan’t find it impossible to deal with you, Alexander Semyonovitch.”
“They conspired against the state,” I pointed out. “I didn’t. That’s the whole difference.”
“I see you’re a hardened enemy as well. You seem to think that we’ve always got to talk to you nicely. But you’ll find we can be different, and then you’ll beg for mercy, but it will be too late. Once more, Alexander Semyonovitch, and for the last time: will you come over to our side or not?”
“Citizen Captain, I have said absolutely everything I c
an possibly say. I have committed none of the crimes you charge me with, and I have told you the absolute truth.”
“That’s enough,” he interrupted sharply. “I’ve nothing more to say to you.”
He rang a bell and Polevedsky came in again.
“Comrade Polevedsky, any further talk is useless. We must now try different methods.”
And then he turned again to me.
“We’ll decide later what to do with you. In any case, there’s no longer any room for you in the Soviet Union. Either you’ll be meat for the polar bears or...But never mind about that; you’ll learn in good time.
“Polevedsky, take this man away.”
I followed Polevedsky in a daze. In his room he signed my propusk and rang. A guard came in. Polevedsky said nothing further to me; he didn’t even answer when I took my leave. When we got down to the hall the guard there said an order had come through that I was to be taken back again to Polevedsky.
My heart stood still. So it was just a little trick to break my nerve. But all Polevédsky wanted me for was to sign another undertaking not to say a word about what had happened.
“Take care you don’t play any more tricks,” he said warningly. “You won’t get away with it a second time.”
I got home just in time to eat. Without waiting to be questioned I said to Marcel:
“I haven’t the faintest idea what they intend to do with me. They haven’t told me to come back and I don’t think they’ll call me again for a while. I’m quite determined to get out if they’ll let me.”
“Are you serious, Alex?” he asked dejectedly. “Must you?”
“Yes, I must, and it’s the best thing in the circumstances. And it would be a very good idea if you came with me, Marcel.”
“That’s nonsense, Alex, and you know it. I’ve got my wife and child here and I like my work. I shall never leave.”
“You could take your wife and child with you.”
“No, they’d never give Lena a passport. Look at Djura,{5} how long she’s been waiting.”
“That’s not the same thing at all, Marcel. Djura is a Komsomol; she doesn’t want to take an Austrian passport and lose her Soviet citizenship.”
“You don’t think Lena would surrender her Soviet citizenship and take a foreign passport, do you? She wouldn’t even if I decided to go. She would never be able to come back.”
There was nothing more to say. How loyal these people were to their country and to our cause in general! And what poor thanks they got for it! Lena was a Ukrainian peasant girl. All she knew about foreign countries was what she had seen in the films, but she had seen the beautiful clothes and shoes foreign women wore when they came to the Soviet Union. “Abroad” to her was something of a fairyland, but she had been taught to regard it as “the enemy,” and she had always refused to surrender her nationality and go abroad to live in what to her would have been great luxury.
They lived very simply, particularly since the birth of the child and since Marcel had lost his regular work. But she was completely happy as long as Marcel was with her. In the Soviet Union they lived together in one room with their baby. In Vienna Marcel had the run of a sizable villa, but Lena thought their one room was the most wonderful home anyone could have. She would have been perfectly happy but for all the excitements and worries of the last year or so: the arrest of my wife, the trouble at the Institute, Marcel’s dismissal and now my plight. Her father had died in the famine of 1921. One of her brothers had lost his life in the hunger years of enforced collectivization, and now she was upset at the prospect of a new wave of disturbance, mistrust and danger. For her the state or, as the peasants said, the vlast—the power—was always an enemy which demanded tribute and victims from time to time. The country itself, that was different. She loved it and was unwilling ever to leave it. She had moved among foreigners for a long time, but she still retained something of this old peasant outlook, despite the fact that she was now reading books, learning the elements of the Marxist theory and getting a gradual idea of it all: the revolution, the building up of socialism and so on.
After we had eaten I went to the Institute and saw Leipunsky. “Alexander Ilyitch,” I began, “I have decided to end my connection with the Institute. I want to go at the end of February.”
“Do you think you can get everything fixed up in a month so that Komarov can carry on without the work having to suffer?”
“I’ll do my utmost. A month ought to be enough. After all, we’re already going through everything together day after day. Komarov will grow into the work insensibly, and I’ll do my best to see that all the materials, machinery and instruments are ready to finish the building operations and do the assembling. After that the actual starting up won’t be so very difficult.”
“I’m sorry you won’t be here to see the start, Alex. I know you’ve put your whole heart into it.”
“I’m sorry too, but I’ve no alternative.”
“Well, I know your reasons and I can’t argue against them. Send in your formal notice and I’ll supply the necessary prikaz.”
He rose and gave me his hand. I very much wanted to ask him whether he had spoken with Maso, but he knew how anxious I was for some news, and if he said nothing it was because he had good reason.
In the following weeks I made arrangements for leaving the country. I did not, of course, know whether they would let me go, and I wanted to let my excitement calm down before I formally raised the matter with the G.P.U. I knew that I could not leave the country without the permission of the very people who had accused me. However, I still hoped.
When a foreigner wishes to leave the Soviet Union he has to lodge his passport with the District Executive Committee and it is then forwarded to the G.P.U. He has to say what frontier post he proposes to pass through and when he expects to do so. He must provide two photos, one of which is sent to the frontier station he has chosen. The G.P.U. at the frontier is then informed that, for example, the foreigner Alexander Semyonovitch Weissberg will cross the frontier between, say, March 1st and March 10th. This makes it impossible for anyone to leave the country with a stolen, borrowed or forged passport. It was almost impossible to leave the country illegally. A stretch of countryside between thirty and forty miles deep right along the frontier is very carefully watched. No one is allowed in that area without special permission from the G.P.U. Thus no one can even get near the frontier without laying himself open to instant suspicion.
At first I considered whether it might not be better to go to Moscow and live there for a few weeks before asking for permission to leave, but I decided there was not much point in it. My departure would immediately be reported to Moscow, and as I had been living in Kharkov, the Moscow G.P.U. would never give me permission to leave without first inquiring of their Kharkov colleagues whether there was any objection. Thus, one way or the other, it was impossible to get round the fact that I should need the agreement of Azak and Polevedsky before I could get out, so on the whole it was better to try to obtain it on the spot.
At the same time I had to reckon that despite Leipunsky’s intervention with Maso I should be arrested in the end. After the arrest of my wife, her mother and I had done everything possible to help her. We had applied to the Military Prosecutor in Leningrad and to the Prosecutor General in Moscow. At first the whole thing had appeared quite hopeless, but gradually we had worked our way through the maze until finally we had reached the official who had my wife’s case in hand. We had collected written declarations in her favor, and a number of members of the Academy of Science had been prepared to come forward on her behalf. In the end the prosecution had withdrawn the main points of the indictment against her. My mother-in-law knew all the intricacies of Soviet legal procedure. An ordinary Soviet citizen, and still more so a foreigner, would not even know to whom to address himself.
I wanted to obtain the assistance of my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law, who was working in Moscow as an engineer, so that they would mobilize all
my influential friends if I were actually arrested, but I was at a loss to know how to do so. To write a letter or make a telephone call would have been extremely dangerous and so would a short trip to Moscow. The G.P.U. might well regard that as flight and arrest me at once. In the end I decided to send a friend, but I was unable to decide who.
I had already told Marcel everything. He had listened to me silently and had seemed very depressed. It was no use thinking of sending him. For one thing, he couldn’t leave his work, and for another he was quite incapable of anything that required a little diplomacy.
A few days later the thing settled itself. Martin Ruhemann had to go to Moscow on business. He was obviously the man. He was discreet and he was well disposed toward me. In addition he was a British subject and therefore much less likely to be interfered with. I decided to talk openly to Ruhemann and his wife Barbara.
I had first met Ruhemann in Munich in the summer of 1931. Obremov, Director of our Institute at the time, had instructed me to establish close relations between the Ukrainian Institute of Physics and Ukrainian industry. The Party had just issued the slogan “All hands to production!” For our Institute, and for all others, it meant giving the utmost possible assistance to the process of industrialization. Our Institute was designed to deal not so much with technical problems as with the advanced problems of modem physics and its leading scientists were not greatly interested in technical problems, but I was enthusiastically in favor of industrialization and I was delighted at the chance to exercise my organizational capacities to ally science with industry. Our Institute had a big low-temperatures laboratory. Now the main use of very low temperatures in the chemical industry is for the separation of gases. In particular we were anxious to investigate the scientific and technical basis for the planning of the great nitrogen works provided for in the Five-Year Plan, and we were working for various industrial trusts and planning organizations measuring the physical constants of gases and gas mixtures. However, our staff was not large enough for the work and as there were no Soviet low-temperature physicists or technicians available it was decided to bring in foreign specialists. I undertook to find men who were not only highly qualified scientists but who sympathized with the work of socialist construction, or who were at least benevolently neutral. Physicist friends of mine in Berlin drew my attention to Martin Ruhemann. In August, 1931, I was in Vienna. Ruhemann lived in Stuttgart and I telephoned him and arranged to meet him in Munich. He made a good impression on me. He was of middle height and rather slim, and moved easily and gracefully. He was British-born and he had all the frank and engaging manners the English public-school system gives to the sons of its ruling class. At the same time he was very helpful, particularly toward colleagues, and he met even really difficult situations with the same smiling good humor. It was not long before I felt certain he would feel at home—at that time—in the Soviet Union.
The Accused Page 10
