first prison industry --------- "In the era of dictatorship, surrounded by enemies on all sides, we sometimes showed undue gentleness and undue softness" Krylenko: Speech at the Trial of the "Party of Industry" Case Chapter 1 Arrest --------- How did the people of this mysterious archipelago get in?When you get there, there are planes flying, ships driving, and trains rumbling away all the time-but there is no destination marked on them.Be it conductors, managers of Soviet travel agencies and international travel agencies, if you ask them for tickets to go there, they will be surprised.Neither the archipelago nor any of its innumerable islands were known or heard of.

Those who go to administer the archipelago - get there through the schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Those who went to serve as the guards -- drafted through the draft service. And the only way to die there, readers, like you and me, is through arrest. arrest! !Say it was a drastic change in your whole life?Said it was a blow from the blue to your head?Say it's that unbearable mental shock that not everyone gets used to and that tends to drive you out of your wits? There are as many centers as there are living beings in the universe.Each of us is the center of the universe, so when a hoarse voice says to you, "You are under arrest", at this moment, the world will collapse.

If it were said to you: You are under arrest - is there anything that will survive this earthquake? But bewildered minds, unable to comprehend this cataclysmic change, bewildered by the wisest and most foolish among us, can at this moment wring out only one sentence from all the experience of our lives : "Me?? For what?!?" The question, which has been repeated a million times before us, has never been answered. Arrest--this is an astonishing movement, a transition from one state to another in a split second. On the long and winding roads of our lives, we have often galloped along some fence, fence, fence -- rotten wood, adobe, brick, concrete, iron -- with happiness, or misfortune. The ground hesitated.We haven't thought about it, what's behind them?We neither tried to peek behind that with our eyes nor our senses—and that's where the Gulag State began.And we are unaware of the innumerable well-worn and well-disguised little doors in these endless walls.All these wickets are meant for us! -At a glance, an ominous small door opened quickly, and four white and tender men's hands who were not used to working but good at passers-by grabbed our feet, our hands, and our collars, Grabbing the hat, grabbing the ear, dragged in like a bale of straw, and the little door behind us, to the little door of our old life, was closed forever.

It's over.You are under arrest! To which we have nothing to answer, except the bleating of a little sheep: "Me? For what??..." This is the blinding lightning bolt from which the present becomes the past and the impossible the real present.It's called an arrest. that is it.For the first hour, for the first few days and nights, nothing else can fit in your head. In your desperation, the circus prop moon will still shine brightly at you: "It's a misunderstanding! We'll figure it out!" And everything else—what has now become traditional, even literary, notions of arrest—will accumulate and form, not in your bewildered memory, but in the memory of your family and neighbors.

It's the shrill nighttime doorbell or rough knocking on the door.This is the operatives on a night mission, wearing unclean boots, stepping through the door with dignity.This is the dazed witness who followed them (why this witness? -- the victim dared not think, the operatives could not remember, but it was the order to do so, so, in order to testify, he had to Sitting up all night. And imagining this Witness being dragged out of bed, walking around night after night to help apprehend his own neighbors and acquaintances, is a real sufferer Traditional arrests - and trembling hands pack things for those who are taken away: a change of clothes, a bar of soap, some food, but no one knows what to wear, what to wear, how to look better, and the operatives Urging, preventing: "I don't need anything. There will be enough to eat, and there will be warmth." (It's all lies. And the urging is for intimidation.)

Traditional Arrest--After the unfortunate has been taken away, there remains a stern, strange, domineering power over the dwelling for many hours on end.This is--picking locks and breaking doors, ripping and throwing things from walls, throwing things from cabinets and tables on the floor, shaking, scattering, tearing,--so that there is a mountain of mess on the floor, and boots trample on it. Gotta creak.And there is nothing sacrosanct about searching!When the locomotive driver Monoshin was arrested, there was a small coffin of his recently dead baby in the room.The judiciary threw the baby out of the coffin, where they also conducted a search.He also dragged the patient out of the bed and untied the bandage.And nothing could possibly be considered absurd at the time of the search!The antiquities lover Chetviru was confiscated with "several tsarist decrees"—that is: decrees on ending the war with Napoleon, on organizing the Holy Alliance, and prayers for the eradication of the cholera of 1830, Our country's excellent Tibetan Tongvostlikov was confiscated with precious ancient Tibetan manuscripts (the students of the deceased managed to rescue them from the KGB after thirty years!).When the orientalist Nevsky was arrested, the manuscripts of the Tangut (Western Xia) people were taken away (after twenty-five years, in recognition of the translation of these manuscripts, the deceased was awarded the Lenin Prize posthumously).Kargai was confiscated from the Oschak people's literature archives in the Yenisei Valley, and the characters and alphabets he invented were banned, so this small nation has never had characters.It would be a long time to describe all this in the language of intellectuals, but the folks said this about the search: what was not found, nothing was found.

Everything that was confiscated was removed, and sometimes the arrested person was forced to carry it-as Nina Alexandrovna Palchinskaya took her late husband, the ever-vigorous Russian A bag of papers and letters from the great engineer was carried -- sent to their jaws, gone forever. For those left behind after the arrest, it will be a long, messed up empty life, trying to deliver things.But from all the windows there was always a dog barking: "There is no such person on the list," "No such person!" On the days of the mass arrests in Leningrad, it took five or five people to get to such a window. Day and night teams.Only after a year and a half, maybe the arrested person will give some feedback, maybe there will be a sentence from inside: "The prisoner has no right to communicate." And this already means-this life is over. "No right of correspondence"--this almost certainly means: shot.

In a nutshell, "we live in damnable conditions when a man suddenly disappears, and even those closest to him - his wife and mother ... don't know what happened to him for years." Is that right? ?Isn't it right?This was written by Lenin in Babushkin's obituary in 1910.To put it bluntly: Babushkin was shot for delivering weapons to the insurgents.He knew what risk he was taking.It is completely different from us rabbits. That's our concept of arrest. Night arrests of the type described above are indeed the customary practice in our country, because it has some important advantages.Everyone in the house was frightened when they heard the first knock on the door.The subject of arrest was dragged out of the hot quilt, and he was still completely half asleep and powerless, and his mind was not clear.In nighttime arrests the operatives have the upper hand in strength: they are several armed men coming against a man who is not wearing any trousers; when packing and searching, presumably there will not be a crowd of victims gathered at the door possible supporters.In order to visit one house in a leisurely manner, then go to another house, and then go to the third and fourth houses tomorrow, so that the operational personnel in the number can be used reasonably, and more than these people in the number can be dispatched. Many times more city dwellers are in jail.

Another advantage of this kind of nighttime arrest is that it is impossible to see how many people are taken overnight, regardless of the adjacent houses, regardless of the city streets.Such nocturnal arrests, which terrified immediate neighbours, were little incident to those far away.It's as if they never happened.At night, "crow cars" run back and forth on this asphalt road, and during the day, the younger generation marches along it holding flags and bouquets, singing joyful and bright songs. But for those who make arrests professionally, the apprehension of the apprehended is nothing more than a routine and tiresome trifle, and their understanding of arrests is much broader.They have a whole set of theories. Don't be naive and think that such theories don't exist.Arrestology - This is an important part of the general prison science curriculum, and it has a solid foundation in social theory.Arrests are categorized according to various characteristics: nocturnal and daytime; at home, at work, on the road; initial and repeated; scattered and clustered.Arrests can be differentiated according to the degree of surprise required, according to the degree of resistance expected (but on tens of millions of occasions no resistance at all was expected, and did not occur).It can also depend on the severity of the intended search, whether to register the seized items, whether to seal the room or house; whether to follow the husband and arrest the wife and send the children to a nursing home, or send all the remaining family members exile, or send old people to labor camps, etc. to distinguish between arrests.

There is also a separate booklet on the science of search (I read a pamphlet for students of the Almaty Law Correspondence School), which praises some judicial officers who took the trouble to rummage through thirty-two Tons of manure, 60,000 lumber, two cartloads of hay, snow cleared the entire yard by the house, bricks out of the stove, dirty puddles out, toilet bowls checked, doghouses, henhouses, birdhouses made. Searching, puncturing mattresses, peeling plasters off people, and even pulling out metal dentures to find microfiles.This book strongly recommends to students that a search should start with the person and end with the person (in case the person snatches something from the searched objects); , do another search.

No--no, there are all kinds of arrests.Irma Mindell, a Hungarian woman, got two tickets to the Bolshoi at the Comintern (1926), a front row seat.Detective Kriege is pursuing her, so she invites him to come with him.They spent the entire performance lovingly, and after the performance he took her directly to Lubinka.In June 1927, on a flower-blossoming day, at the Kuznets Bridge, Anna Skripnikova, a plump-cheeked beauty with brown braids, had just bought herself a blue dress with a A well-dressed young man came and asked her to ride in a carriage (and the driver frowned when he realized it: the authorities did not pay for the carriage), and this was not a tryst, but an arrest: they are now abducting To Lubinka, drive through the dark gate.If (after twenty-two springs) Lieutenant Colonel Bolis Burkovsky in a white uniform and smelling of expensive perfume bought a girl a big cake, don't swear Well, this big cake will definitely fall into the girl's hands, instead of being slashed by the searchers and taken into his original cell by himself.No, arrests during the day, arrests on the road, and arrests in public have never been ignored here.Yet it was done neatly, and, astonishingly, the victims themselves and the operatives always coordinated and looked as graceful as possible, so that the rest of the living would not perceive that the time had come. the demise of people. Not everyone can be arrested at home and knocked on the door (and if knocked, the housekeeper or the postman must knock), nor can anyone be arrested at work.If the person to be arrested is extremely astute, it is advisable for the arrest to take place away from his accustomed surroundings--out of his family, away from his colleagues, away from like-minded people, out of the closet: he should not have time to destroy, hide, transfer out.For military or party officials, sometimes a new appointment is given first, a carriage with a living room is allocated, and arrests are made on the way.Some unknown, petrified by house-to-house arrests, who had been disturbed for a week by the sullen and indifferent face of his superior--was suddenly summoned to the trade union committee, where he was given a happy face. A convalescent pass to Sochi.The rabbit was moved—so to speak, his fears were in vain.He thanked him, and hurried home in joy to pack the box.Two hours before leaving the car, he scolded his wife for being clumsy.Well, finally arrived at the station!There is still time.In the passenger waiting room, or at the beer counter, a very pleasant young man called to him: "Pyotr Ivanitch, don't you recognize me?" Peter Ivanitch I don't know what to do: "I don't think so, although..." the young man said very affectionately: "Oh, no, no, let me remind you..." Then he bowed respectfully to Peter Ivanitch's wife and asked "I beg your pardon, your husband will soon..." The wife consented, and the stranger took Peter Ivanitch by the hand like a friend, and took him away—forever or for ten years! The bustling around the station did not notice anything, ... citizens who love to travel!Don't forget that at each station there is a branch of the political security service and several cells. This kind of entanglement of false acquaintances is so severe that a person who has not been trained like a labor camp wolf cannot easily get rid of it.Don't think that if you are a staff member of the American embassy, ​​say by the name of Alexander De?, then you will not be arrested in broad daylight near the Central Telegraph Building on Gorky Street.Your never-before-seen friend rushes towards you through the dense crowd, spreading his hands that are good at grasping: "Sacha!" Instead of lying in ambush, he simply shouts at you, "Hello, good friend! It's been a while since you've seen him." Already!? Come on, let’s stand aside and don’t get in the way of others.” At the side, on the sidewalk, a “Victory” car happened to drive up at this time... (TASS will publish an angry statement in various newspapers in a few days : Relevant parties know nothing about the disappearance of Alexander De?).Yeah, what's the big deal?Our good men made such arrests in Brussels (that's how Zola Bredenov was arrested), but it's nothing in Moscow. The agency should be given due credit: in an age when orators' speeches, theater productions and women's dress patterns all seem to have been produced from a conveyor belt, the arrest method can also make people feel some variety.You were taken to the exit of the factory, and after you confirmed your identity with a pass - you were taken away; you were taken away from the military hospital with a high fever of 39 degrees (Anse Bernstein) , and the doctor did not object to your arrest (he objected to try!); you were taken directly from the operating table during gastric ulcer surgery (H. M. Inspector, 1936) -- half dead, covered in blood, sent to the cell (Karpunich recollection); you (Nagia Levitzkani) demand to see the condemned mother.I'll meet you! --and this is confrontation and arrest!You were called to the order department at the grocery store, and you were arrested there; by the pilgrim you let him stay overnight for Christ's sake; by the electrician who came to read the meters; Yours is the cyclist who collides with you in the street; railroad attendants, taxi drivers, savings bank clerks, and movie theater managers - all of whom will arrest you, and you only see the well-hidden ones in hindsight Crimson certificate. At times, arrests seem like a game in which too many extravagant ingenuities are expended, so much energy that is too full to be wasted, without which the victim would have little resistance.Whether the operatives want to show their work in this way to justify their large numbers.In fact, it seems that it is enough to distribute subpoenas to all the rabbits who are scheduled to be caught-they themselves will walk into the black iron gate of the national security agency with a small package at the appointed time, so that they can be sent to them. A place in a reserved cell. (This is how the collective farmer is arrested. Is it necessary to go to his house through the wilderness at night? It is enough to call him to the village Soviet and arrest him. Menial workers are usually called to the office to arrest.) Of course, any machine has its own intake quota, and it cannot do more than this quota.In the hectic 1945-'46, when military trains came one by one from Europe and needed to swallow them all at once and send them to the Gulag Archipelago, this kind of There are no more colorful games, theories have greatly faded, and the feathers used for ceremonies have been lost. Calling people out in one train, and then locking them into another train, this is the whole picture of the arrest. One of the characteristics of political arrests in our country for decades is precisely that those arrested are innocent and therefore not prepared to make any resistance.This creates a common feeling that everyone is doomed, a notion that there is no escape from the hands of the State Political Security Service - NKVD (this is true under our national identity card system).During the epidemic of arrests, when people went to work, they even said goodbye to their families first, because they didn't know if they would be back at night-and even then, almost none of them fled (only a few committed suicide).This fits the bill.Taming a wolf is easy to eat. This situation also occurs due to ignorance of the mechanisms of the arrest epidemic.There is often no real basis for the agency to choose who to arrest and who not to touch, but to complete the control number. There may be a certain pattern in getting the number together, or it may be completely accidental.In 1937 a woman went to the NKVD reception post in Novocherkassk to ask what to do with the baby of her neighbor who had been arrested.The people there said to her: "Wait a minute, let's check." She sat there for about two hours--before she was taken from the reception station and sent to a cell: urgently needed to fill up the numbers, but couldn't send So many staff members went to the whole city to catch them, but this one has already been sent to the door by himself!On the contrary, Andrei Pavel, a Latvian who lived near Orsha, was arrested by the NKVD. He jumped out of the window and fled to Siberia without opening the door.Although he lived there under his real name and his papers clearly stated that he was from Orsha, he was never imprisoned.He was neither summoned by the authorities, nor was he under any suspicion.Because there are three types of wanted: all-Soviet, republic, and provincial, while at least half of the arrests of fugitives in the time of a pandemic will not announce more than provincial wanted.According to accidental circumstances, such as a neighbor's informant, etc., the criminal who decides to arrest can easily be replaced by another neighbor.A man who, like Andre Pavel, accidentally falls into a ring or an ambush and has the courage to escape immediately before the first interrogation, is never hunted and held accountable; whoever stays and waits Whoever is dealt with fairly will get the sentence.And yet almost all of them, the overwhelming majority, behave in this way: hesitant, cowering, helpless, resigned to their fate. It is true that when the NKVD fails to catch the people it needs, it often asks relatives not to leave the country, and then it is easy to make up the formalities and replace the fleeing ones with those who stay. Universal innocence breeds universal inaction.Maybe not enough to get caught?Maybe that's the way to go? A. H. Radrensky was the chief teacher at the remote Korogrivo local school.In 1937 a peasant came up to him at the market and conveyed someone's words: "Alexander Ivanitch, go away, you are already on the list!" But he stayed: to Knowing that the whole school is dependent on me, and their own children are studying with me - how could they arrest me? ... (Arrested a few days later.) Not everyone understands like Vanya Levitsky at the age of fourteen: "Every honest man should go to prison. Now Daddy is in prison, When I grow up--they'll lock me up, too." (He was in prison at twenty-three.) Most held out a sliver of hope.Since you are innocent,--why should you be arrested?This is wrong!People are already grabbing you by the collar, and you are still muttering to yourself: "This is a mistake! As soon as you figure it out—it will be released!" Who can figure out the specific situation: "Perhaps pulling one happens to be...?" As for you, you must be innocent!You also see the agency as an institution that follows human logic: once you figure it out, let it go. So why do you run away? ...how can you resist?Know that you will only exacerbate your situation, you will prevent the error from being cleared up.You even followed him down the stairs, because you were told not to let the neighbors hear you, so there was no resistance at all. Later in the labor camp, he would feel deeply, what would happen if every operative went to carry out arrests at night and didn't know if he would come back alive, so he said goodbye to his family?If during periods of mass arrests, like in Leningrad, when a quarter of the city's inhabitants were imprisoned, people weren't sitting in their caves and hearing every door slam and staircase They stood in a daze with fright at the sound of footsteps on the road--but understood that they had nothing to lose, so they held axes, hammers, and hooks in their hands, and took everything they could get in their hands. What if he lays an ambush in his doorway?Since it was already known that these night caps were no good--it would never be wrong to give the murderer a head-on blow.And the "crow car" parked in the street with only one driver - get rid of it, or puncture the wheels. The agency will not immediately calculate the shortage of staff and vehicles, so that, no matter how much Stalin wants, This accursed machine must be stopped! If... if... we are simply to blame for what happened next. Furthermore, what is the resistance?Refuse to take off your belt?Or refuse to stand in the corner of the room?Or refuse to cross the threshold of becoming a monk?An arrest is a series of small actions, made up of many small details.There seems no point in arguing over any single small matter (while the arrested person's mind is spinning in circles around the big question "For what?"), and all these small actions taken together inevitably constitutes an arrest. How many things are stirring in the mind of a newly arrested man! -- This alone is enough to write a book.There may be feelings there that we never even imagined.When nineteen-year-old Yevgenina Doyalinko was arrested in 1921, she didn't care that three young Cheka officers rummaged through her bed and the chest of drawers. : Nothing, nothing will be found.But suddenly they came across her secret diary that even her mother wouldn't show-three hostile strange youths were reading her diary line by line.This event shocked her more than all Lubinka with its fences and cellars.To many, the arrest may have hurt this private feeling and memory more than the fear of prison or the political ideology could have imposed on him.A person who is not prepared for violence is always weak in front of those who use it. A rare few bright and bold people figured out what to do in a split second.Grigoriev, director of the Geological Institute of the Academy of Sciences, built a fence to resist when someone came to arrest him in 1948, and won two hours to burn the documents. Sometimes the main feeling of being arrested is relief, even... joy, but this happens during an arrest pandemic: when people like you are being picked up all around you, and for whatever reason they're not Coming to arrest you, I do not know why it is always delayed--you must know this trouble, this torture is more painful than any arrest, and it is not only for the weak.Vasily Vlasov, whom we will refer to many times later, was a fearless Communist who, despite the advice of his non-Party aides, was determined not to flee.All the leaders of the Kad district were arrested (1937), but no one came to arrest him. He couldn't bear the mental pressure, so he could only stick his head out and beat him - he was detained , I felt relieved, and felt very good about myself during the first few days of my arrest.Father Irakli went to Almaty in 1934 to visit the exiled Christians. During this period, he went to his residence in Moscow to arrest him three times.When he came back, the parishioners went to the station to pick him up and did not let him go home.Hide him from house to house for eight years.The priest was so exhausted by this dreadful life that when he was finally arrested in 1942, he happily sang hymns to God. In this chapter, we are all talking about the masses, the rabbits who have been imprisoned inexplicably.But we will also be dealing with those who are still real politicians in the new age.Vera Rybakova, a student-social-democrat, always yearns for the Suzdal quarantine center when she is outside: only there can she hope to meet old comrades (there are no such people outside), Develop your own worldview.Ekaterina Olitska, a female Socialist Revolutionary, was ranked in 1924 and even thought she was not eligible to go to prison, because the best people in Russia went in, but she hadn't done anything for Russia thing.But the outside world won't let her stay any longer.So they both went into the prison with pride and joy. "Resist! Why don't you resist!"--and now those who have been peaceful are scolding us. Yes, resistance should have started here, from the moment of arrest. but did not start. And just like that, you are taken by them.There must be this brief, non-repeatable moment of arrest during the day--either covertly, with a sneaky appointment with you in advance, or openly, with a pistol on the outside--through the crowd, caught in the same innocent by the thousands. Take you from among the wretched.Your mouth is not gagged.So you could and should have shouted!You should yell and say you're under arrest!Say villains in disguise are catching people!Arresting people based on false accusations!It is silently destroying millions of people!Perhaps our fellow-citizens would be enraged when they hear such calls all over the city many times a day?Maybe arrests won't be so easy! ? In 1927, when tameness had not softened our brains so much, two Cheka officers tried to arrest a woman in broad daylight on Serpukhov Square.She grabbed hold of the lamppost and yelled, refusing to give in.A crowd gathers (women like this are needed, but crowds like this are needed! Passers-by don't all lower their eyes and don't all scurry by!).These two young men with quick hands and feet were in a dilemma at that time.They cannot work in public.They got into the car and ran away (the woman should have gone to the railway station immediately and left by car! Instead, she went home to spend the night. So they took her to Lubinka at night). But not a sound escaped your parched lips, and passers-by mistook you and your executioners for good friends who took a stroll together. I myself have had many opportunities to yell. On the eleventh day after my arrest, three gratuitous counterintelligence agents took me to Moscow's Belorussian station, their main burden being four boxes of loot, not me (after a long journey. I'm completely relieved).They are called special envoys, and under the pretext of escorting me, they transported property looted from Germany by themselves and the chiefs of the Second Belarusian Front "Demurshi" (counterintelligence agency).The automatic rifles on their backs served no purpose other than hindering them from carrying four heavy boxes.The fifth box, held by me without interest, contains my diary and creations - evidence against me. None of the three of them knew the capital well, so the responsibility for taking the shortest route to the prison and taking them to Lubinka, which they had never been before (which I confused with the Foreign Office building), fell on them. It's over my head. I spent a day and night in the anti-espionage organization of the Army Group; I spent three days and nights in the anti-espionage organization of the Front Army. will never be put back again; ten years is inevitable), and after this--I broke free, and for four days now I have walked among free men like a free man, although my body was already in the Lying on the rotten grass next to the toilet in the cell, although my eyes have seen the sleepless people who were beaten all over the body, my ears have heard the truth, and my mouth has tasted the taste of rotten vegetable soup--then I Why are you still silent?Why not take advantage of my last public appearance to wake up the deluded masses? I kept silent in the Polish city of Brodnica - but maybe Russian is not understood there?I didn't shout a single word in the streets of Belostok - but maybe all this has nothing to do with the Poles?I didn't say a word on Volkovysk station - but it's a sparsely populated place.I walked the brigands nonchalantly around the platforms in Minsk - but the station was still shabby.Now I lead these special staff into the white dome vestibule on the upper floor of the Belarusian subway station. It is brightly lit, and two parallel rolling elevators are densely packed with Muscovites, rising up to meet us.They seem to be watching me!From the depths of ignorance below, like endless ribbons, they stretch toward me, toward the radiant dome, demanding even a word of truth—so why should I remain silent? ? ! Yet each has a dozen plausible reasons why he was right for not sacrificing himself. They also hope for a peaceful ending, fearing that if they cry out, things will go wrong (because we have no news from the underworld, we don't know that the worst plan has been made for our fate since the first arrest) decided, so that it can no longer be made worse).Others have not matured enough to understand the concepts that make up the content of the cry to the masses.It should be noted that only a revolutionist has a slogan on his lips, and he will blurt it out when the time comes, and a docile, irrelevant mediocrity, where does this slogan come from?He simply didn't know what to shout for.Finally, there is a class of people who have too much stagnation in their chests and have seen too many things in the world, so how can they pour out the water of a lake in a few incoherent cries. I, I am silent for another reason: these Muscovites standing on the two rolling elevators are too few for me--too few!There are 200 people here who can hear me screaming, even if the 200 people are doubled, what about the 200 million people? ... I have a vague feeling that one day I will cry out to two hundred million people ... For the time being, I didn't speak, and the rolling elevator pulled me to hell irresistibly. I will also remain silent on Hunting Street. No shouting around the Metropolitan Hotel either. In Lubinka Square, where Jesus was martyred, he will not wave his hands... What I received was probably the lightest form of arrest imaginable.It didn't take me from the arms of my loved ones, it didn't force me to leave a family life that was cherished.它是在萎靡的欧洲的二月天里，从我方插向波罗的海的、不知是我们包围了德军还是德军包围了我们的一支狭长的箭头上把我批出来的，使我失去的只是混熟了的炮兵连以及战争最后三个月的景象。 旅长把我叫到指挥部，不知为什么问我是否带着手枪，我把枪交了，丝毫没有怀疑到会有什么名堂，--突然，从神情紧张地站在角落里一动不动的随从军官中跑出两个反间谍人员来，三步两步蹦到我身边，四只手同时抓住我的红星帽徽、肩章、腰带、图囊，戏剧性地叫道： "你被捕了！！" 我像从头顶到脚底被灼伤、被刺穿似的，找不出什么更聪明的话来，除了说： "我？为了什么？！" 虽然这个问题平常是得不到回答的，但奇怪的是，我却得到了回答。这值得一提，因为这太异乎寻常了。反间谍人员刚结束了对我的搜查，与图囊一起拿走了我记录我的政治思考的本子。德国炮弹炸得玻璃震颤，使他们感到很不自在，于是连忙把我推向门口。这时一个果断的声音突然向我传来--是的！穿过那随着一声"你被捕了"而在我和留下的人们之间沉重地落下的闸门，穿过这个什么声音都不敢通过的瘟疫带--传来了旅长的不可思议的神奇的话！ "索尔仁尼琴。回来。" 于是，我就一个急转身从反间谍人员的手里挣脱出来，回头向旅长走去。我对他了解很少，他从来没有降低身份同我作过普通的谈话。他的脸对我来说，一直是命令、号令、愤怒的表象。现在它却由于沉思而显得明朗起来--是对自己身不由土地参与肮脏勾当而感到羞愧？是突然产生的要打破终身的可怜的从属关系的冲动？十天以前我从他的拥有十二件重武器的一个炮兵营陷入的包围圈中，把自己的侦察炮连几乎完整无损地带了出来，而现在他却必须在一纸公文面前同我划清界线。 他每个字都很有力量地问道："您……有个朋友在第一乌克兰方面军？" "不行！……您没有权利！"--反间谍机关的大尉和少校冲着上校叫喊起来。墙角里站着的随从参谋人员惊恐地缩成一团，好似害怕分担旅长那闻所未闻的轻率行为的责任（而政治工作人员已经准备提供旅长的材料了）。但这对于我来说已经足够了。我立即懂得，我是因为同我的一个中学同学通信而被捕的，并且明白了，我应当从哪几条线上预料危险性。 虽然，扎哈尔?格奥尔盖维奇?特拉夫金本可就此而止！但是没有！他继续清洗自己的良心，舒展自己的灵魂，他从桌子后面矍然起立（在此以前他从来没有迎着我站起来过！），穿过瘟疫带向我伸出手来（当我自由的时候，他从来没有向我伸出过手！），在华若寒蝉的随从人员们的恐怖目光下，他握着我的手，一向严峻的脸上露出暖意，无畏地、字字分明地说： "祝您--幸福--大尉！" 我不仅已经不是大尉，而且已经是一个被揭穿了的人民敌人（因为在我们这里，任何一个被捕的人，从逮捕之时起，就算已经完全被揭穿了）。这么说，他是在向敌人祝福？ ... 玻璃在震颤。德国炮弹的爆炸在二百米远近的地方撕裂着大地。它引起这样的想法，如果是在较远的后方，在我们本国的土地上，在稳定的生活的保护罩下，这种事情是不可能发生的，它只有在人人平等的死亡迫在眉梢的情况下才会发生。 这本书不是我自己生活的回忆录。因此，我不去叙述我那四不像的逮捕的极其有趣的细节。在那一夜，反间谍人员们对于按地图辨别方向（他们也从来没有查看过地图）已完全绝望，因而客气地把它交给了我，并请我向司机说明，怎样去集团军的反间谍机关。于是我把自己和他们带到了这个监狱。他们为了表示感谢，不是立即就把我关进牢房，而是关进了禁闭室。关于这个！临时用作禁闭室的德国农家的小贮藏室，倒不能不说几句。 它有一个人身材的长度，而宽度--三个人躺着就觉得挤，四个人--则要紧挨着了。我正好是第四个人。把我推进去的时候已经是半夜以后了。三个躺着的人在煤油灯光下从睡梦中向我皱起了眉头，挪开了一点地方。这样，在地面铺着的碎草上就有了我们八只冲着门的靴子和四件军大衣。他们睡着，我心里像烧着一团火。半天前找那个大尉当得愈自信，现时在这小屋地下挨挤就愈难受了。一两次，小伙子们由于腰睡麻木了而醒过来，于是我们就同时翻一个身。 到早晨，他们睡醒了，打打呵欠，伸伸懒腰，收起了腿，蜷缩到各个角落去，这时便开始互相结识。 "你是为了什么呀？" 在"死灭尔施"（反间谍机关）有毒的屋檐下，防人三分的浊气对我已有所熏染，于是我就憨直地故作惊讶： "我一点不知道。难道那些坏蛋会告诉你吗？" 然而，我的同监难友--戴着黑色软盔的坦克手们却没有隐瞒。这是三颗诚实的心，三颗士兵的赤子之心--是我在战争年代里深深喜欢上了的一类人（我自己要复杂些和坏些）。他们三个人都是军官。他们的肩章也被恶狠狠地撕了下来，个别地方还露着线痕。在弄脏了的军服上，色浅的地方是拧下来的勋章的痕迹，脸上和手上深红色的疤痕是弹伤和烧伤的纪念。他们的营倒霉地开到了这个第四十八集团军反间谍机关"死灭尔施"驻扎的村子里。他们因前天的战斗身上弄得湿透了，昨天喝了酒，便从村后闯进洗澡房，他们发觉已有两个风骚姑娘到那里去洗澡。他们因喝醉了酒两腿不听使唤，所以姑娘们来得及披上一点衣服跑掉了。可是其中一个不是什么平平常常的女人，而是集团军反间谍机关长官的随军夫人。 yes!战争已经在德国进行了三个星期，我们大家都清楚地知道：要是这些姑娘是德国人--就可以把她们强奸，然后开枪打死，这几乎会是一种战功；要是她们是波兰女人或者是我们的被驱赶来的俄罗斯女人--那至少可以赶着她们赤身露体地在菜园子奔跑，拍拍大腿--开个玩笑嘛，岂有他哉。但既然碰上了反间谍机关长官的"战地随军夫人"-一便出来了一个后方机关的中士，立即恶狠狠地从三个作战部队的军官肩上撕下按方面军的命令核准给他们的肩章，摘掉最高苏维埃主席团授予他们的勋章--现在等着这些曾用履带辗平过也许不止一道敌军交通壕的好汉们的，是军事法庭的审判，而这个军事法庭如果没有他们的坦克也许到不了这村子里来。 我们把煤油灯熄灭了，它已经烧光了我们这里赖以呼吸的一切。门上开有一个明信片大小的旋转口，走廊的间接光就从那里落下来。好像担心白天到来后我们在禁闭室里会变得太宽敞，马上给我们添进了第五个人。他穿着新制的红军大衣，戴着也是新制的军帽走了进来，当地转向旋转口时，让我们看清了一张长着翘鼻子、满颊红晕的容光焕发的脸。 "兄弟，从哪儿来？你是什么人？" "从那边来，"他敏捷地回答，"是间谍。" "开玩笑吧？"--我们发愣了（由间谍自己说出自己的身分--舍宁和图尔兄弟"从来没有这样写过）。 小伙子懂事地叹了口气说："军事时期哪能开玩笑！好吧，倒要向你请教请教，不然怎样才能从俘虏营回家？" 他刚开始向我们叙述，一昼夜前德国人怎样把他带过战线，要他在这里进行间谍活动和破坏桥梁，而他却跑到最近的一个营去投降，又困又累的营长怎么也不相信他，并把他送到护土那里去服药片等等--突然新的情况发生了： "解手去！手背起来！"--一个完全可以拖动一百二十二毫米大炮架尾的愣头愣脑的准尉从打开了的门外朝里叫唤。 农家院落四周布置了一圈持自动步枪的士兵，警戒着我们要去的绕向草棚后面的小道。我气炸了，一个粗野的准尉竟胆敢命令我们军官"手背起来"，但坦克手们把手背了起来，于是我也就跟着走了。 草棚后面有一圈面积不大的畜栏，覆盖着还没有融化的踩实了的积雪--它被一堆堆的人粪弄得肮脏不堪，那么乱七八糟地、密密麻麻地拉在全部场地上，以至要找到可以放两只脚和蹲下的地方便成了一项不易解决的任务。但我们还是找到了，于是五人一起在不同的地方蹲了下来。两名自动步枪手面色阴沉地端着枪对准了蹲在地上的我们。还没有过一分钟，准尉就厉声说： "喂，赶紧点儿！在我们这里解手要快！" 离我不远蹲着一个坦克手，罗斯托夫人，身材魁梧的总是板着脸的上尉。他的脸被金属粉尘或烟炱熏染得漆黑，但一条穿过脸颊的红色大伤疤却清晰可见。 "你们这里指的是什么地方？"他轻声地问道，没有显示出愿意赶紧回到那散发着煤油气息的禁闭室的意思。 "反间谍机关死灭尔施！"准尉用骄傲的过分响亮的嗓门粗声粗气地回答（反间谍人员很喜欢这个用"死亡"和"间谍"两个字趣味低劣地揉成的"死灭尔施""，认为它是很吓人的）。 "在我们那里是慢的。"上尉若有所思地回答。他的软盔挪到了脑后，头上露出还没有被剃掉的头发，他在火线上磨出腿子的屁股正迎着令人舒适的冷冷的微风。 "你们那里指的是什么地方？"准尉超过实际需要地大声吠叫。 "红军。"上尉从蹲着的地方站起来，用眼光扫射了一下这个未成事实的火炮架尾拖拉手，非常心平气和地回答。 这就是我呼吸到的最初几口的监狱气息。