Chapter 12 Chapter 7 Between the Machines

In the isolation room next to the "station" in Butyrka, the famous search room (where new prisoners are searched, the area is quite large enough for five or six guards to deal with twenty prisoners at a time), there is no one now, The rough body-search table was empty, only nearby, under a small electric lamp, sat a neatly dressed, dark-haired NKVD major at a small makeshift table.Patient boredom was the dominant expression on his face.He knew that it was a waste of time to bring the prisoners in and out one by one.There would have been a much quicker way to get the prisoner's signature together.

He pointed to a stool across from his desk, asked me to sit down, and asked for my name.On the left and right sides of the ink bottle in front of him, there are stacks of identical documents that only take up half a sheet of typewritten paper, which are the same size as the fuel certificate issued by the housing management or the letter of introduction for purchasing office supplies issued by the agency.The major turned over the stack on the right, and found the paper concerning me.He pulled out the paper, read it quickly in a flat tone (I understand that it was eight years for me), and immediately wrote on the back with a fountain pen. The text has been read to me today.

My heart didn't jump half a beat. What happened was so normal.Could this be my verdict for the decisive turning point of my life?I wanted to get excited, to feel the moment, but I couldn't.And the major had pushed the paper face up towards me.A seven-kopeck schoolfountain pen with an inferior nib and fluff hanging from the inkwell was placed before me. "No, I should read it myself." "Shall I lie to you?" objected the major languidly. "Okay, let's read it." Only then reluctantly let go of the hand holding the document.I turned it over, looking at it deliberately slowly, not word by word, but letter by letter.It was typed, but what I had before me was not the original but a copy:

Should I simply sign my name and walk away without making a sound?I glanced at the major. Would he say something to me, would he explain something?No, he had no such intention.He has already nodded to the guard standing at the door to indicate that he is ready to bring the next one. To make the moment even a little bit more important, I tragically asked him: "But what a horror! Eight years! For what?" I also felt that my words sounded false: neither I nor he felt anything terrible. "Right here." The major again pointed me to where to sign. I signed it.Because I can't think of what else to do.

"Then please allow me to write a complaint with you. For the judgment is unjust." "According to the prescribed procedure." The major mechanically gave me a slight nod, and put my paper on the left stack. "Let's go!" The guard gave me an order. So I'm done. (It seems that my brain is too slow. It is true that Georgy Denno got twenty-five years, but he answered this way: "Isn't that equal to life imprisonment! Previously, the sentence of life imprisonment required beating drums and calling the crowd. It’s better for you here, it’s like getting twenty-five boxes of soap, push it away!”

Arnold Rappoport took a pen and wrote on the back: "Resolutely protest against the illegal sentence of terrorism and demand immediate release." This excerpt from the judgment was torn to shreds.It doesn't matter, the sentence is still valid: it was originally just a copy. Vera Korneyeva had always expected fifteen years, and she was overjoyed to see only five years printed on the paperwork.She laughed heartily, and hurriedly signed, fearing that it would be taken back.The officer was a little puzzled: "Did you understand what I read to you?" "Yes, yes, thank you very much, five-year labor reform camp!"

For the Hungarian Rozas Janos, his ten-year sentence was read in Russian in a hallway, without translation.He signed it, not realizing that it was a verdict, and waited a long time afterwards for the trial, and finally guessed it when he vaguely remembered it in the labor camp. ) I returned to the isolation room with a smile on my face.Strangely, I felt more and more cheerful and relaxed with each passing minute.Everyone came back with a "ten-dollar note", and so did Valentin.Of our group today, the crazy accountant (who until now sat there ignorantly) got the shortest sentence, the kindergarten term, followed by me.

The branch outside the window still swayed merrily in the bright sunshine and in the July breeze.We chatted lively.Laughter erupted more and more from all corners of the isolation room.We laughed at how everything went so smoothly; at the accountant who was in shock; at the hope we held in the morning; at how we were sent off in the prison cell, and how we agreed to make four potatoes as a secret sign when sending the prison meal!Two ring buns! Some asserted: "There will be an amnesty! It's just a formality, a scare, let's remember. Stalin told an American journalist..." "What's the reporter's last name?"

"I don't know what my last name is..." That's when we're called to pick up our things, line up in double rows, and lead us again through this wonderful little garden full of summer.Where are you going?Go to the bathroom again! This made us laugh out loud What a fool!Laughing, we took off our clothes, hung them on the same hooks that we had just hung this morning, and sent them to the steam room that was just sent this morning.Smiling and receiving a bar of foul-smelling soap, I walked into the spacious, echoing shower room to wash off any grime I didn't pick up.We splashed water, poured clean hot water on ourselves, poured it, and played like schoolchildren entering the bathhouse after finishing their last homework.This purifying, relaxing laughter is not, I think, even a disease, but an active protection and salvation of the organism.

Valentin, while wiping himself, said comfortingly and comfortably to me: "It doesn't matter, we are still young, we still have to live. The main thing is that we can't take a wrong step now. We don't say a word to anyone when we go to the labor camp, so as not to give us a new sentence. We will be honest After work, there is silence, silence." He, an innocent grain in the middle of Stalin's millstone, had believed in this program so much, had hoped so much, that he wanted to agree with him, serve his sentence comfortably, and then erase everything that had happened from his mind. .

But I had this feeling in my heart: If you have to not live in order to live, why bother? ... It cannot be said that the special tribunal was conceived after the revolution.Ekaterina II gave Novikov, a journalist who did not agree with her, fifteen years, which can be said to have taken the special court approach, because he was not handed over to the court for trial.And all emperors paternalistically exiled from time to time those who did not suit them without trial.Fundamental judicial reforms were introduced in the 1860s.It seems that both rulers and subjects are beginning to develop something like a legal conception of society.However, in the 1970s and 1980s, Korolenko also observed some incidents of administrative sanctions in lieu of judicial trials.He himself had been exiled in 1876, together with two university students, without trial and investigation, by order of the Under-Secretary of State for Property (a typical case of the Extraordinary Chamber).Another time he was exiled to Glazov together with his brother without trial.Korolenko named us Fedor Bogdan, a peasant representative who appealed to the tsar and was exiled; There are several others. In this way, the tradition continues like a dotted line, but it is too loose and only suitable for Asian countries that are sleeping rather than leaping forward.Furthermore, this is a phenomenon of no one responsible: who is the special court?For a while it was the Tsar, for a while it was the Governor-General, and for a while it was the Deputy Minister.Also, I'm sorry, if you can even list the names and events, it's too small. The spirit was acquired from the twenties, when permanent triumvirate groups at all levels were established to circumvent the courts on a regular basis.At first it was even proudly labeled as a three-man political security bureau!The names of the judges are not only not concealed, but also publicized!Who in Solovets does not know the famous Moscow trio Gleb Boki, Vur and Vasilyev? !Besides, what a resounding word TPOHKA is!In this word, the sound of the small bells under the yoke of the carriage can be faintly heard, and the scene of Maslenitsa galloping can be faintly seen, and at the same time, there is a sense of mystery: why is it called a "three-person team"?What does it mean?The court is not composed of four people!But a trio is not a court!And the greater mystery is that it is faceless.We hadn't been there, we hadn't seen it, we were just sent a paper: sign it.In fact the trio was more terrifying than the Revolutionary Tribunal.And then it was isolated from the world, tightly wrapped, locked in a separate room, and its name was concealed.As a result, we are used to thinking that the members of the three-person team do not eat, drink, or move among people.Once they are in the jury they stay there forever, only to be sent to us by the typist (and sent back after reading: such a document cannot be kept on hand). These three-person teams (for the sake of security, we use the majority, as if talking about gods and immortals, you never know where they are) meet the following absolute needs: once caught, they cannot be released (it is similar to the state The Technical Inspection Section of the Political Security Bureau: no waste products are allowed).If a person is really innocent, and there is really no way to judge him, let him get his own "minus thirty-two" (provincial capital) through a three-person team" or exile for two or three years, and then look at one ear The hair on his head has been shorn, and he has been marked forever as a "recidivist" from now on. (Forgive me, readers. We have made the mistake of right opportunism again and used the concept of "crime", such as guilt or innocence. Didn't you explain it to us, the problem is not whether the individual is guilty or not, but the social danger If you are a social dissident, you can be imprisoned if you are not guilty, and if you are a member of the social kinship, you can be released if you are guilty. However, if the 1926 Code itself, which we have lived for twenty-five years, is also Inadmissible bourgeois standpoint", "inadequate class viewpoint", "bourgeois attitude of sentencing according to the severity of the behavior" has been criticized.) Then, we laymen of the law are even more forgivable. It is a pity that we have not had the opportunity to write the fascinating history of this institution.Has the State Political Security Service always had the right to shoot people for convictions in absentia throughout its existence? (For example, in 1927 to the famous Cadets Pavel and Dolgorukov, and in 1929 to Palchinsky, von Meck and Velichko.) Is it only in Perhaps it is more casual than this to adopt the method of a three-person group when the evidence is insufficient but the person is clearly a dangerous member of society?How the triumvirate in White Rock began to be called the "Special Council" and how the triumvirate in the states came to be known as the Special Divisions of the State Courts later, when the GPO was sadly renamed the NKVD in 1934, That is to say, the court is composed of three court personnel, without half of the people's jurors, and the court is always held in secret.From 1937 onwards in the states and self-governing republics was added another triumvirate consisting of the secretary of the state party committee, the head of the state internal affairs bureau and the state attorney general. (These new three-member teams are headed by a simple two-person team in Moscow consisting of the NKVD and the Prosecutor General of the USSR. You have to agree that it is not convenient to ask Joseph Vissarionovich as the third The members came to the meeting?) At that time, from the end of 1938, these three-person groups, two-person groups, all disappeared unconsciously (you should know that Yezhov was also planted) but at the same time our dear OCO ( The special court) has been more consolidated, and the power of punishment in absentia and without trial was first limited to less than ten years, then extended to more than ten years, and later included execution by shooting.Dear OCO's glorious days continued until 1958, when our benefactor Beria stumbled. It has existed for nineteen years, but you ask: who among our lords has participated in this institution; Do the discussions talk to each other or not at all?We can't write it - because we don't know.We just heard that the essence of the special court is a trinity. Although we can’t tell the names of its diligent judges now, we know that there are three organs with permanent representatives: one is the Party Central Committee, the other is the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the other is the Procuratorate.However, if one day we find that there was no court at all, only a few experienced female typists who were responsible for fabricating excerpts from non-existing transcripts, and a chief of staff who led the female typists, that is also useless. No fuss.Female typists do have this we can guarantee! The special court is not mentioned in the constitution or in the code, but it is the most convenient meat grinder. It has no opinions, is not demanding, and does not need to be lubricated by law.The Code is one thing, the Tribunal is another, and it can be easily run without needing all two hundred and five articles of the Code, not using them, and not referring to them. As the joke in the labor camps goes: If there is no [court], there is a [special] family. Of course, it also needs some kind of input code for convenience, so it has made itself some very convenient (no need to bother to adapt to the code reference) capital letter clauses in numbers that even a child can remember (some of which we mentioned earlier): Anti-Soviet Propaganda counterrevolutionary activity The prisoner who added the small letter "T" (Thor) to the counter-revolutionary Trotsky movement had a much harder time in the labor camp. Suspected espionage (transfer of espionage beyond the scope of suspicion to court-martial) Connections that give rise to (!) suspicions of espionage counterrevolutionary thinking anti-soviet sentiment Social Danger social harmful elements Criminal activity (they're fond of slapping this on past laborers if they can't find anything wrong with them) Finally, there is a clause with a large capacity: Dependents (family members of persons sentenced under any of the capital letters above). It must not be forgotten that the crimes represented by these capital letters were not evenly distributed among the various persons and ages, but, like the crimes prescribed by the codes and decrees, appeared in epidemiological bursts. There is also a statement: the special court does not believe that it has the right to judge people at all!It does not give judgment!It is subject to administrative action, nothing more, so it is only natural that it enjoys legal freedom. However, although the administrative sanction does not consider itself to have the effect of a judicial judgment, its duration can reach twenty-five years and include; deprivation of titles and awards; confiscation of all property; secret confinement; deprivation of communication rights. Thus, the decision of the special chamber makes a person disappear from the face of the earth more firmly than a crude judicial decision. Another important advantage of the Extraordinary Chamber is that its decisions are not appealable and there is no place for appeal; there is neither any class above it nor any class below it.It obeys only the Minister of the Interior, Stalin and the devil. The speed with which cases are handled is also a major advantage of the Special Chamber: it is limited only by typing skills. Finally, not only is the tribunal not required to see the defendant in person (thus easing the burden of transport between prisons) it is not even required to see a photograph of the defendant.In times of overcrowded prisons, it also provides a convenience, that is, as soon as the investigation is over, the prisoner no longer occupies a piece of prison ground, no longer eats free bread, but is immediately sent to a labor camp for honest labor.He can read a copy of the excerpt much later. In cases of preferential treatment, this was sometimes done by disembarking the prisoners at the station of destination; they were made to kneel immediately beside the embankment (this was to prevent escape, which turned out to be a prayer to the special court), and the sentence was read to them immediately.There is also another way: in 1938, a group of prisoners deported to Berepol did not know what article they had violated, nor did they know the sentence, but the documents that came to receive them already knew, and immediately Found in the list: (Social Harmful Elements) Five years. Others have worked for many months in the camp without knowing the sentence.After that (according to H. Doleriak) they were solemnly lined up not on a random day, but on May 1, 1938, when the red flag was hoisted, and the reading of the Stalinist trio Judgment of the group (after all, the special court is scattered during the busy period): each gets ten to twenty years.In 1938 my labor camp leader Simhan Brukhov was sent from Chelyabinsk to Cherepovets with a train of unconvicted prisoners.Months passed and the inmates were already working there.Suddenly, on a day off in winter (take note of which days! See the advantage of the special court?) drove them out into the yard in the bitter cold, lined up, and out came a lieutenant from out of town, who introduced himself, was sent to read to them the decision of the Extraordinary Chamber.He was not a vicious young man, squinted at their open shoes, looked at the sunlight on the icicles and said: "Actually, fellas, why are you freezing here? You know, the Special Court gave you all ten years and only a few of you eight years. Got it? Disbanded!  …" However, with such blatant mechanical processing by the special court, what is the court doing?What's the point of a horse-drawn carriage when there are quiet, modern trams that you can't jump off?Is it to feed the judges? It's just that it's somewhat inappropriate for a country to have no courts at all.The Eighth Party Congress in 1919 wrote in the program: Strive to enable all individual working residents to participate in the exercise of the duties of judges. "Everyone participates" failed. Being a judge is a delicate job, but it is completely Not even the court! In fact, our political courts, the special divisions of the provincial courts, the military courts, and all the supreme courts are in line with the special divisions, and they are not hindered by the troubles of public proceedings and bipartisan debates. Their first and main one is especially closed hearings.For their own convenience, they are not publicly available at first ^ We are so used to millions and millions of people being sentenced in closed courts, we are so used to it, that some foolish son or brother or nephew of the sentenced person thinks he is justified He sneered at you: "What should I do according to what you said? It seems that the case must be related to... Let the enemy know! Never..." For fear of letting "the enemy know", we put our heads between our legs.Who in our country now, except bookworms, remembers that Karakozov, who shot at the Tsar, was given a defender?Zhelyabov and all the Narodnaya Volya people were tried in public, not at all afraid that "the Turks know"?Vera Zasulich shot the person who, in our current terminology, is the head of the Moscow Internal Affairs Department (although the bullet flew past the head and missed), not only was he not eliminated in the torture chamber, not only was he not Trial was held in public, but a jury (not a trio) acquitted in open court and she returned triumphantly in a carriage. I do not mean by these comparisons to show that at one time there were well-established courts in Russia.Presumably, a well-deserved court should be the latest product of the most mature society, or at least a Solomon emperor needs to come out.Vladimir Dari pointed out that in pre-reform Russia "there was not a single proverb praising the courts"!This somewhat explains the problem!It seems that none of the proverbs praising the magistrates have had time to form.But the judicial reform of 1864, after all, put at least the urban part of our society on the road to the British model. In saying all this, I do not forget Yanstoevsky's accusation of our jury court ("The Writer's Diary"): the abuse of the lawyer's eloquence ("Gentlemen of the jury! A woman who does not kill herself What kind of a woman is that?... Gentlemen of the jury! Who among you doesn't throw a baby out of the window?..."), the whims of the jury can override civic responsibility.But Yanstoevsky is not worried about what he should be worried about.He thinks that a public trial is something that has been earned forever! ... (Yes, who among his contemporaries could have believed that there would be a special court? ...) In another place he also wrote: "It is better to release a person than to kill someone wrongly." Ah, right, Yes! The abuse of eloquence is a malady not only of courts in the making but more generally of established democracies (established but having lost their moral purpose).Again Britain gives us the example: the leader of the opposition has no shame in blaming the government for exaggerated domestic ills, in order to give his party the upper hand. The abuse of eloquence is a bad thing.But what words can be used to describe the public trial of abuse of wood?Janstoevsky yearns for a court where the prosecutor should say all that is necessary to defend the accused.How many more centuries do we have to wait?For the time being, what our social experience tells us is that there are innumerable types of defense lawyers whose job it is to bring charges against the accused ("As an upright Soviet man, as a true patriot. I am analyzing It is impossible not to be disgusted by these crimes..."). How good it is in a closed court!Judge's robes are not required and the sleeves can be rolled up.How easy it is to work!There are no microphones, no reporters, and no audience (no, why not, there are, but those are the scouts).In the Leningrad Provincial Court, for example, they went to hear cases during the day to see how their subjects were doing, and then went to the prison at night to visit those who should be taught a lesson. The second main feature of our political courts is certainty at work.That is to say, its judgment is predetermined. It is still the information that "From Prison to..." forced on us in the book: the practice of pre-determining sentences has existed for a long time. From 1924 to 1929, court judgments were regulated by uniform administrative and economic considerations.Since 1924, due to the unemployment in the country, the courts have reduced the number of sentences for reform at home and increased the sentences for short-term imprisonment (referring to daily life criminals, of course).As a result, prisons are overcrowded with short-term prisoners (under six months) and their work in the camps is underutilized.At the beginning of 1929, the People's Commissar of Justice of the Soviet Union issued Circular No. 5 to criticize the practice of imposing short-term sentences. The decision to turn to the moment of socialist construction) simply prohibits sentences of less than one year in prison! The judge knows in advance either about the specific case he is handling, or how he is required to judge in accordance with the general spirit of the superior's instructions. (It should be noted that the judge's room is usually equipped with a telephone!) Sometimes even according to the practice of the special court, all the judgments are printed in advance, and only the names are filled in by hand.If a Strahovich exclaimed in the courtroom: "How can I be bought by Ignatovsky, I was only ten years old!" , 1942) need only be shouted: "No slander of the Soviet spy agency!" Everything was decided long ago: the entire Ignatovsky clique was shot.There was only one Lipov who was a little bit involved in the group; nobody in the group knew him, and he didn't know anyone.Well, then give Lipov ten years. Predetermination of judgment - how easy it makes the difficult life of the judge!It's not even so much a mental ease of thinking as a moral one: it frees you from worrying about making a mistake in your judgment and orphaning your own children.Even a murderous judge like Ulrich - which mass shooting sentence did not come out of his mouth?The practice of predetermining the sentence also softened him.For example, in 1945 the court-martial tried the case of "Estonian separatists".The presiding judge was the short, sturdy, kind Ulrich.Not only did he not miss the opportunity to joke with colleagues, but he also never missed the opportunity to joke with prisoners (isn't this just human touch! A new feature. Where have you seen it?).When he learned that Suzy was a lawyer, he smiled and said to him, "Look, your profession has worked for you!" Well, what's there to argue between them?Why get angry?The trial proceeded according to a pleasant procedure: one could smoke in the bench and have a good time - a good mid-day break.It's time to go to the collegiate meeting in the evening.Who judges at night?Let the prisoners sit at the table overnight, and then go home.When they came to work in the morning, they were all refreshed and clean-shaven. At nine o'clock in the morning, they said, "Stand up, the court is now in session!" - each prisoner was given a "ten-yuan coupon". If someone reproaches that the Special Chamber is at least not hypocritical, but here it is hypocritical - pretending to be deliberative, no, we will firmly oppose it!strongly oppose! Finally, the third feature is dialectics (a vulgar saying used to be: "A person has two skins, and everything is justified").Codes should not be fixed stones in the way of judges.The articles of the Code have had ten, fifteen, twenty-five years of swiftly passing life, and, as Faust says: "The whole world is changing, everything is moving forward, And I dare not break my promise? "All the articles are accompanied by a lot of explanations, instructions, and detailed rules. If the defendant's behavior is not within the scope of the code, the following methods can also be used to sentence: By analogy (how convenient!) Simply based on birth (Articles 7 and 35 of the Criminal Code, belonging to a socially dangerous class) Because of connections with dangerous people (Skynet is back! What kind of person is a dangerous person and what kind of connection is there? Only the judge can understand). There is no need to find fault with the clarity of the various laws enacted.For example, on January 13, 1950, there was a decree on the restoration of the death penalty (I am afraid it was never abolished in Beria's basement).It reads: Sabotage and assassination may be punished with death.What does it mean?That's what I mean.Joseph Vissarionovich likes to do it this way: don't make it clear, just suggest it.Does this only refer to those who use TNT to destroy the rails?Not stated.What is an "assailant"?We have known for a long time; whoever produces inferior products is the assassin.Who, then, are the saboteurs?For example, if talking on the tram undermines the authority of the government, does it count?Or marrying a foreigner. Isn't that destroying the dignity of our motherland? ... In fact, it is not the judge who is judging the case. The judge only receives a salary, but the order is judging the case!Instructions in 1937: execute in ten or twenty years.Instructions in 1943: 20 years of hard labor and hanging.Four-five-year orders; an average of ten years each plus five years of deprivation of rights (three five-year plans for labor).49-year order: 25 years in average each. (Thus the real spy Schulz, Berlin, in 1948 might get ten years, while Günter Waschau, who had never been a spy, got twenty-five years. 1949.) The machine is stamping.Once a person is arrested and his buttons are cut off at the gate of the national security agency, all his rights will be deprived from then on, and he cannot escape the sentence of imprisonment.Lawyers have become so used to this situation that in 1958 a big joke was made: a new draft of the Soviet Criminal Procedure Outline was published in the newspaper, but they forgot to include in it the possible The content of the acquittal verdict.The government newspaper (cf. Izvestia, September 10, 1958) mildly chided, "It may create the impression that our courts can only pass guilty verdicts." If you stand from the standpoint of jurists, you will think: Since there is only one candidate for the national general election, then, to be honest, why must there be two possible outcomes in the trial of a case?And the acquittal is also an economic hoax!Because this means that intelligence personnel, operational personnel, investigative agencies, procuratorial agencies, internal guards of the prison, and escorts are all for nothing! Here is a simple and typical case heard by a military court.In 1941, the Cheka Operations needed to show a little vigilance and vigilance among our idle troops in Mongolia.The military doctor Lozovsky, who was jealous of Lieutenant Pavel Chulpenev, had figured out the climate.He privately asked Chulpenev three questions: 1.What do you think about why we retreated from the Germans? (Churpenev: They have a lot of technical equipment, and they mobilized early. Lozovsky: No, this is a strategy. We are luring the enemy to go deep.) 2.Do you trust the aid of the Allies? (Churpenev: I believe they will help, but not selflessly. Lozovsky: They will deceive us and will not help at all.) 3.Why was Voroshilov sent to command the Northwest Front? Chulpenev answered and forgot.And Lozovsky wrote a little report.Churpenev was summoned to the political department of the division and expelled from the Komsomol: accused of feeling defeated, praising German technical equipment, belittling the strategy of our command.The most impassioned speaker was the commander of the regiment, Kariakin (Churpenev had seen his cowardice in the battle of Khalkhin, and now he had a convenient opportunity to deal with the witnesses once and for all). arrest.There was only one face-to-face confrontation with Lozovsky.Investigators did not question them about their last conversation.Just ask one question: do you know this person?know.Witness, you can go (the investigator is afraid that the accusation will be refuted). Chulpenev, dejected after a month in the pit, was tried before the revolutionary tribunal of the 36th Mechanized Division.Attending the court were Lebedev, political commissar of the division, and Slesarev, director of the political department.Not even the witness Lozovsky was present (however, for the sake of perjury, the signatures of Lozovsky and Commissar Seryogin will be obtained after the trial).The question asked by the court was: did you have a conversation with Lozovsky?What did he ask you?how do you answerChulpenev reported honestly, but he still did not understand what he was guilty of.He innocently exclaimed: "But many people are talking about it!" The court responded quickly: "Who is it? Name it." But Chulpenev is not their kind!Let him make the final statement. "I ask the court to test my patriotic feelings once more, and give me a mission to die!" And the simple warrior added: "Let me, and the man who slandered me, go together!" Alas, no, it is our duty to eliminate this riding style among the people.Lozovsky should distribute medicinal noodles, and Seryogin should educate the soldiers.Does it matter that you die or don't die?What matters is that I {I] stand firm in my defense.The judges left the court, smoked and re-entered: ten years of labor reform plus three years of deprivation of rights. During the war, there were more than ten such cases in each division (otherwise it would be too uneconomical to support military courts).How many handsome ones are there? Readers are asked to do the math. . . . the court-martial sessions are tiresomely similar to each other.The judges, who are faceless and emotionless like rubber gloves, are annoying.Judgments are output from the conveyor belt. Everyone pretended to be serious, but everyone understood that this was just a stage show, and the boys in the escort team knew this best, and they said it straight.In 1945, at the Novosibirsk deportation station, the escort team received a group of prisoners, and they were calling names according to the case: "So-and-so!" "58 Article 1-A, twenty-five years." The escort captain happened I was interested and asked, "What was the sentence for?" When the work of the military court is tense, the "collegiate meeting" only takes one minute to go out and come in again.When the court-martial works sixteen hours a day, you can see white tablecloths, tables full of food, and tall basins of fruit from the door of the collegiate room.If not in a hurry, like to "use psychology" to read the sentence: "... death penalty! ..." Pause.It is interesting that the judge looks directly into the eyes of the condemned man: what mood is he in?他现在有什么感觉？ ……"但是，考虑到……真心悔悟……" 军事法庭候审室的所有墙壁上都用钉子和铅笔划满这类字样："得了枪决"、"得了二十五年"、"得了十年"。故意不擦掉这类题词：它能起教训作用。害怕吧，低头认罪吧，不要以为你能用自己的行为来改变什么。在空荡荡的审判厅里当着一小撮侦查员的面，你纵然用狄摩西尼的辞令来为自己辩护（奥丽加?斯辽兹贝格在最高法院，一九三六年）也丝毫帮不了你的忙。把刑罚从十年提高到枪决这则是你能做到的，如果你冲着他们叫喊："你们是法西斯分子，我为我参加过几年你们的党而感到可耻！"（尼古拉?谢苗诺维奇?达斯卡尔在亚速夫-黑海边疆区专门法庭，庭长霍利克，迈科普市，一九三七年）那就会另立新案，那就会把你毁了。 察夫达罗夫讲述了一件事：在法庭上被告们突然推翻了自己在侦查中所作的全部假供。这又怎样呢？如果为了交换眼色也算发生了一点停顿，那也只是几秒钟的事情。检察长不说明理由就要求休庭。侦查员们带着打手从侦查监狱飞奔而来。把被告分散到各个隔离室，重新好好痛打了一顿，还许下诺言在第二次休庭时再打个彻底。休庭结束了。审判员把所有的被告再询问了一遍现在大家都相认了。 纺织科学研究所所长亚历山大?格里戈利耶维奇?卡列特尼科夫表现了出色的随机应变本领。在最高法院军事审判庭开庭的前一刻，他通过警卫声言愿意作一些补充供述。这当然是令人发生兴趣的。检察长接见了他。卡列特尼科夫解开衣服，让他看被侦查员用凳子打断的已经在腐烂的锁骨，并声明："我的全部口供都是在刑讯下逼出来的。"检察长只好诅咒自己贪求"补充"供述，但是，已经晚了。他们中间的每一个人，只有当他是运行中的总机器的一个不被察觉的部件的时候，他才是有恃无恐的。但只要个人的责任一集中到他身上，光束直接照着他的时候，他便脸色发白，他懂得他也等于零，他也能在任何一块果皮上滑倒。这样，卡列特尼科夫就把检察长抓在手里了，而那人也就不敢把事情搪塞过去。军事审判庭开庭了，卡列特尼科夫在那里又重述了一遍……军事法庭这次可真地去合议了！现在它只能作出宣告无罪的判决，那就是说，应当立即把卡列特尼科夫释放。因此……它就没有作出任何决定。 若无其事地又把卡列特尼科夫押到了监狱，稍稍给他治疗了一下，羁留了三个月。来了个新的侦查员，一个彬彬有礼的人，签发了一个新的逮捕证（如果军事庭不昧良心做事，至少这三个月卡列特尼科夫可以在外面逍遥一下！），重新向他提出第一个侦查员提过的问题。卡列特尼科夫预感到自由即将来临，表现得很坚定，不承认自己有任何罪。结果怎样呢？……根据特别庭的决定他得到了八年。 这个例子足以表明一个囚犯能做些什么和特别庭能做些什么。杰尔查文是这样写的： "偏私的法庭比强盗还狠。 法律睡觉时法官就是敌人。 在你们面前站立着一个公民 伸长了脖子悉听尊命。 " 但最高法院军事庭上是很少发生这种不愉快的事情的，而且一般说来，它很少擦擦自己的迷糊眼睛去瞧一下单个的"锡囚犯"。电气工程师A?江?罗曼诺夫在一九三七年由两名押解员架着跑步拖上四楼（电梯大概是开着的，但囚犯上下得那么频繁，如果让他们用，工作人员就上不了楼）。他们和迎面下楼的已判犯互相错开，一路跑进了审判厅。军事庭忙得实在不可开交，连坐也没坐下，三个人一齐站在那里。罗曼诺夫艰难地喘过一口气（要知道他已经被长久的侦查弄得精疲力尽），报了自己的姓氏、本名与父名。审判员们咕噜了几句，互相使了个眼色，于是乌尔里赫老是他！便宣告："二十年！"又马上跑步把罗曼诺夫押走，跑步拖进了下一个。 真像做梦一样，一九六三年二月，我也沿着同一座楼梯走上楼去，但却是在一名上校党支书的彬彬有礼的陪同下。在周围有一排圆柱的，据说是苏联最高法院全体会议开会的大厅里，放着一张巨大的马蹄形长桌，马蹄形的中间还放着一张圆桌和七把古老的椅子，在这里，曾审判过卡列特尼科夫和罗曼诺夫以及其他各色人物的军事庭的七十名工作人员听我讲话。我对他们说："这是一个值得纪念的日子！我作为一个起初被判劳改后来被永久流放的人，却从来没有亲眼见到过一个审判员。现在我看到了你们大家聚集在一堂！"（他们也以擦亮了的眼睛第一次看到一个活生生的犯人。） 但是，原来他们并不是过去的那些审判员！Yes.他们现在说，他们不是那些人。他们向我保证，那些人已经不在了。有一些光荣退休了，有的被撤职了（乌尔里赫这个出类拔萃的刽子手原来在斯大林时期的一九五0年就因……立场不稳被撤职了），某些人（屈指可数的几个）在赫鲁晓夫时期甚至受到了审判，而他们还从被告席上威胁说："今天你审判我们，明天我们要审判你，瞧着吧！"但是，像赫鲁晓夫所有的创举一样，这个开头很起劲的运动不久就被他忘掉了，抛弃了，没有达到不可逆转的变革的程度，那就是说，一切依然如故。 这时候有几个司法战线的老兵说了点往事，无意中给我提供了写这一章的资料（如果他们自己动手公布内情，写回忆文章，情况会怎样呢？但岁月流逝，又过了五个年头，并没有变得光明一些）。他们回忆，审判员们在司法会议的讲坛上如何骄傲地说，他们是怎样避免了适用刑法典中关于减轻处罚情节的第五十一条，从而做到用二十五年代替十年的判决！他们还回想起，法院怎样屈辱地服从于"机关"！有一个审判员受理送交法院的一个案子：一个从美国回来的公民诽谤性地断言那里有良好的公路。除此没有别的事。案卷里也再没有别的材料！审判员鼓起勇气把案件返回，要求补充侦查，目的是取得"有充分价值的反苏材料"就是说对这个犯人再用点刑，再打一顿。但是审判员的这个高贵目的没有得到理解，他得到了一个充满愤怒的答复："你不信任我们的机关？"于是审判员被贬滴到萨哈林岛去当军事法庭的书记员（赫鲁晓夫时期处理得轻些，"犯了错误的"审判员被派去……你们猜派到哪里去？……当律师）。检察机关也一样俯首听命于机关。一九四二年留明在北海反间谍机关中滥用职权的令人发指的事实泄露了出去，检察机关不敢行使自己的职权加以干预，而只是恭恭敬敬地向阿巴库莫夭报告说他的孩子们在淘气。阿巴库莫夫完全有理由认为机关是大地之盐！（正是这次他把留明调回来提拔的，结果给自己招来一颗丧门星。） 可惜时间不够，他们本来可以给我讲十倍之多的东西。但已经讲的这些，也足以深思了。如果法院和检察机关只不过是国家安全部长的小卒子那也许并不需要专辟一章来论述它们了？ 他们争先恐后地向我讲述，我一边望着他们，一边觉得惊奇：是呀，他们是人呀！完全是人呀！瞧，他们在微笑！瞧，他们真诚地表明心迹说他们如何地只想着做好事。好吧，如果再来一次反复，他们又必须来审判我就在这个大厅里审判我（给我看的是主要的大厅），那时会怎么样呢？ 那又有什么，还是会审判的。 什么在先呢？-一是鸡还是鸡蛋？是人还是制度？ 我国有一则流传了几个世纪的谚语：不怕法律只怕法官。 但是，我想，法律已经超过了人，人在残酷性上落后了。应当把这则谚语倒过来：不怕法官-一只怕法律。 当然是阿巴库莫夫的法律。 瞧，他们一个个走上讲坛，讨论《伊凡?杰尼索维奇的一天》。瞧，他们高兴地说，这本书减轻了他们良心上的负担（就是这样说的……）。他们承认，我所描写的情景还是大大冲淡了的，他们中间的每一个人都知道有条件更恶劣的劳改营（那么说，他们经管过？……）。坐在马蹄形桌旁的七十个人中，有几个发言的人原来是熟悉文学的，甚至是《新世界》杂志的读者，他们渴望进行改革，活跃地抨击我们社会的症结，谈论农村的荒废景象。 我坐着，想着，如果最初的小小一滴真理的水珠都能像一颗心理炸弹那样地爆炸那末，当真理像瀑布一样泻落下来的时候，在我们的国家里将会是怎样一种情形呢？ 一定会泻落下来的，那是不可避免的。