Chapter 16 2
From this arose the fourth serious indictment: the commitment to the Brest Peace Treaty in the summer and autumn of 1918, when the German Reich was struggling to hold on to the final months and weeks of war against the Entente. The Soviet government is supporting Germany in this hard struggle with trainloads of grain and monthly deliveries of gold, and the Socialist Revolutionaries are insidiously preparing (not even preparing, but rather repeating the old custom: if...then should... ...) To blow up the railway before such a train leaves, leaving the gold in the motherland means that they are "ready to criminally destroy our people's property railway". (I didn’t feel ashamed at the time, and I didn’t hide it. It’s true that Russia’s gold was transported to Hitler’s empire in the future. Krylenko, who studied history and law, did not expect that none of his assistants secretly Reminder, if steel rails are the property of the people, maybe gold bars also count?...)
From the fourth count inevitably follows the fifth: the Socialist-Revolutionaries intend to take money from the representatives of the Allies to purchase the technical equipment for this explosion (in order not to hand over the gold to Kaiser Wilhelm, they want to take money from the Entente) and this is already an extreme act of treason! (Just in case Krylenko muttered that the Socialist-Revolutionaries had also been in touch with Ludendorff's headquarters, but had gone to the wrong owner.)
From this it is not far off to the sixth charge: the Socialist-Revolutionaries were Entente spies in 1918!Yesterday a revolutionary - today a spy!It must have sounded explosive at the time.Since then the accusation has come up one after another, which is almost unappetizing.
There are also Articles 7 and 10, which are the same as Savinkov or Feronenko.Either with the Cadets, or with the "Renaissance League" (has it ever been? ...) or even with the reactionary students, or even with the White Army.
That's the long list of indictments the Attorney General (who had restored the moniker to him before the trial) deftly pulls off.Whether it was the result of brooding in an office, or a sudden inspiration sitting behind a lectern, he found the heartfelt words of a sympathizer and the tone of a friend's accusation, which he has always used in subsequent trials. It is used more and more proficiently, and the flavor is getting stronger and stronger. This kind of tone has received shocking effects in 37 years.The purpose of this tone is to seek agreement between the judge and the judged, and jointly fight against the rest of the world.The tune was played on the interrogate's favorite string.The public prosecutor said to the Socialist-Revolutionaries: We and you are all revolutionaries! (We! You add us to us!) How can you degenerate into alliance with the Cadets? (Your hearts will probably break at this point!) What about uniting with the officers?Why bother teaching those reactionary college students the excellent clandestine techniques you devised? (This is the peculiar character of the October coup: simultaneously declaring war on all political parties and immediately banning them from uniting with each other "Not here to catch you, don't sign for trouble.")
How can some defendants be inactive in their hearts?How did they think they had fallen so low?It should be noted that the prisoner brought out of his cell was most impressed by the sympathy expressed by the Attorney-General in the bright hall.
Krylenko also developed a logical path (which was later useful for Vyshinsky's charges against Kamenev and Bukharin): You form an alliance with the bourgeoisie, you get money from them.At first you took the money for specific activities, not for the ultimate purpose of the party, but where is the line?Who can tell the two apart?You must know that specific activities are not also the purpose of the party?And so you are in a quagmire: have you not become a party of the bourgeoisie, Socialist-Revolutionaries? !Where is your revolutionary pride?
The accusations have accumulated more than enough. The court could go in and deliberate, and give everyone the punishment they deserve. But there are still some troubles:
All the crimes charged here against the Socialist-Revolutionaries belong to 1917 and 1918;
In February 1919 the Socialist-Revolutionary Party Committee decided to stop the struggle against the Bolsheviks (whether it was exhausted from the struggle, or the socialist conscience was too strong).On February 27, 1919, the Bolshevik government announced an amnesty for the past of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.The party was legalized, went underground and two weeks later there were mass arrests, all the leaders were arrested (it's called: do it our way!);
Since then they haven't fought outside the prison, let alone inside the prison (the party center is squatting in Butyrkar, don't know why it didn't escape like it did during the tsarist period) so they pardoned themselves Nothing has been done until now in 1922.
It doesn’t count if they don’t fight, they recognize Soviet power! (That is to say, he gave up his previous provisional government and the Constituent Assembly.) It just asked for a re-election of the Soviets with free elections by all parties. (The defendant Central Committee member Hendelman even said in court: "Please give us the full range of so-called civil liberties and we will not violate the law." Give them the "full range"!)
Did you hear that?Did you hear that?The hostile face of the bourgeoisie protrudes here!Is it possible?You must know that the current situation is serious!We must know that we are surrounded by the enemy! (It will continue to be like this in twenty years, fifty years, and one hundred years) But you want the free propaganda of all parties, what's wrong with the dog? !
Politically sane people can only laugh it off and shrug their shoulders, Krylenko said.To this end a just decision was made: "immediately take all repressive measures of the state to put an end to the possibility of anti-government propaganda by these groups" (p. 183). Caught) put in jail!
But what charges are being brought against them now?Our Attorney General complained: "This period has not been subject to due judicial investigation."
One charge, however, was infallible: in that same February, 1919, the Socialist-Revolutionaries passed a resolution (but did not put it into practice, but it was all the same under the new penal code): in the Red Army Conducted secret propaganda so that Red Army soldiers refused to participate in the punishment team against the peasants.
This is a despicable and insidious act of betrayal and revolution!Participation in penalty teams is discouraged.
It is also possible to list everything that the main Socialist-Revolutionaries of the so-called "Central Committee foreign delegations" of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party who have slipped to Europe say, write, and do (mostly say and write) as the responsibility of these people at home. guilt.
But all this is too little.Then came up with another one: "Many of the defendants sitting here should not have been prosecuted in this case, had they not been charged with organizing terrorist acts!" He said... When the amnesty was issued in 1919 At that time, "no one in the Soviet judiciary thought" that the Socialist Revolutionaries would also organize terrorist actions against the leading cadres of the Soviet state! (Yes, really, who would have thought that the Socialist-Revolutionaries would engage in terrorist acts? If they had, they would have had to be pardoned along with them! It was luck that it did not occur at the time. Only when necessary Thought.) Now this charge has not been pardoned (because only the struggle was pardoned) and now Krylenko brings it up!
First: what did the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party say in the first days after the October Revolution? (What hasn't been said in the life of these tongue-in-cheeks!...) Abram Goetz, the current leader of the defendants, that is, the leader of the party, said: "If the despots in Smolny were against the Constituent Infringement ... the Socialist-Revolutionary Party will be reminded of its old, tried-and-tested tactics."
Naturally, this was to be expected from the untamable Socialist-Revolutionaries.It is indeed hard to believe that they have given up terror.
Krylenko grumbled that "at the time of this investigation", because of the secrecy of the activities, "witness statements ... will be few". "This makes my task very difficult . . . having to linger in the dark at some point in this respect." (p. 236)
Further complicating Krylenko's task, the question of terrorism against the Soviet regime was discussed three times in 1918 in the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and was rejected three times.And now, years later, it was necessary to prove that the Socialist-Revolutionaries were still terrorizing.
The Socialist-Revolutionaries decided at that time not to strike before the Bolsheviks carried out their policy of massacres against the Socialists.Said in 1920: If the Bolsheviks kill the Socialist-Revolutionaries taken hostage, the party will take up arms. (Even if the other hostages are killed...)
Herein lies the question; why with a reservation?Why not absolutely give up? "Why no absolutely negative opinions?" The party was not committing any act of terror, which is clear even from Krylenko's indictment.But the fact that one of the defendants had in his mind a plan to blow up the locomotive of a train on the way to Moscow by the Council of People's Commissars is tantamount to a crime of terrorism committed by the Central Committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.The executor Ivanova took a piece of nitrocellulose explosives and stood guard near the station overnight. This was tantamount to plotting to subvert Trotsky's train, and it was also tantamount to the Central Committee committing a crime of terrorism.Or: Donskoi, a member of the Central Committee, had warned Kaplan that if she shot Lenin, she would be expelled from the party.This is not enough!Why is there no absolute prohibition? (Or perhaps: why not denounce her to the Cheka?) Kaplan was always sticky: she was a Socialist-Revolutionary.
Krylenko plucked the dead rooster just to prove that the Socialist-Revolutionaries did not take steps to stop their idle combatants from committing personal terror. (Those combat members also did everything. Semyonov ordered Sergeyev to assassinate Volodarsky, but the Party Central Committee stood aside and did not accept Li Lian, and even publicly declared that he had nothing to do with it. But later This Semyonov and his girlfriend Konoplyova, with dubious sincerity, gave informative and voluntary testimony to the State Political Security Bureau and now to the courts, and these most terrible fighters were not in the Soviet courts. Escorted, and during recess they walk home to sleep.)
Regarding a witness, Krylenko explained it this way: "If one wants to fabricate, he may not be able to fabricate it so coincidentally that it hits the point." (p. 251) (Very powerful! Against any perjury It can be said that way.) Or (about Donskoy): Is it possible to "suspect that he has such insight that he can confess exactly what the prosecution requires?" The opposite is said about Konopliova: Her confession is indeed credible precisely in that not all of what she confessed was necessary for the prosecution (but was sufficient for a sentence of execution). "If we ask the question and say that all this was fabricated by Konoplyova ... then it is clear: a fabrication is a fabrication (he knows it!), and you see she is a complete fabrication! (Second 53) There is also such a saying: "Will there be this meeting?The possibility cannot be ruled out. "Not ruled out? That means it happened! You can say what you like!
And then there's "Wrecking Team".Discussed about it for a long time, but suddenly said: "It was disbanded due to inactivity." Then why do you have to talk about it?There were several incidents of extortion of money from Soviet institutions (the Socialist-Revolutionaries had no funds for their activities, had to rent houses, and traveled between cities).But formerly, in the parlance of all revolutionary parties, such an action was called beautiful and noble expropriation.And now, before the Soviet courts, it was "robbing and harboring".
In the prosecution materials of this case, the law's dim, unblinking lantern illuminates all the hesitation and wavering of this political party that talks so much, but is essentially panicked, helpless, or even inactive, and has never had a decent leadership. , The history of turning east and west.And so every decision or indecision it makes, every roll, impulse or retreat it makes now becomes, is deemed its guilt, guilt, guilt.
In September 1921, ten months before the trial, the arrested Central Committee, already in Butirka Prison, wrote to the newly elected Central Committee that what it had agreed was not in any way To overthrow the Bolshevik dictatorship, but only by means of solidarity with the working masses and propaganda and agitation (that is to say, in prison it neither agrees to use terror nor to rely on conspiracy for liberation!) This has also become their goal. Top Sin: Well, that means you agree to overthrow the regime!
But if after all, there is still no charge of overthrowing the current regime, no charge of terrorism, almost all acts of extortion of money and goods, and all other problems have long been forgiven, then what should we do?Our dear Attorney-General resorted to a treasured magic weapon: "In the final analysis, non-reporting is also a criminal constitution, which applies to all persons under trial without exception, and should be considered as having been found out. "(page 305)
The Socialist-Revolutionaries have already committed the crime of not denouncing themselves.There is no escape!This is a new discovery of legal thought in the new code, and this is the paved way to send batches of grateful descendants to Siberia.
Krylenko simply and angrily cursed the defendants as a group of "eternal vicious enemies"!So it is clear what to do with them without a trial.
The Code is still so new that Krylenko has not even had time to memorize the numbers of the main articles stipulating the crime of counter-revolution. But what a stick he wields these numbers!How eloquently quoted and explained!It seems that the blades of the guillotine have been raised and lowered according to these provisions for decades.What is especially new and important is that the old tsarist code distinguishing between methods and means is missing with us!They have no effect on conviction or sentencing!For us, the intent and the behavior are the same!A resolution was made for it to proceed to trial.As for "whether or not this resolution has been implemented, it doesn't have any significance." (page 185) Whispering to his wife in the bed that it would be best to overthrow the Soviet regime, or conduct propaganda and agitation during elections, or throw a bomb Bombs are all the same!The penalty is the same! ! !
A confident painter only needs to draw a few rough lines with charcoal, and a vivid portrait suddenly appears.From the sketches in 1922, we can see more and more clearly the panorama of 1937, 1945, and 1949.
This was the first experiment in a trial that was open even to Europe, and the first experiment in "the rage of the masses". The "rage of the crowd" was particularly successful.
This is the case.For four years the two Socialist Internationals, the Second and the Second Half (Vienna Union), watched with complete calm, if not ecstasy, how the Bolsheviks hacked, burned, and drowned people for the glory of socialism, Shooting people, suppressing their own country, all this is understood as a great social experiment.But in the spring of 1922 Moscow was disturbed and alarmed by the announcement that forty-seven Socialist-Revolutionaries had been handed over to the Supreme Court for trial of the leaders of the European Socialists.
At the beginning of 1922 a meeting of the three "Internationals" (the representatives of the Comintern were Bukharin and Rajk) was held in Berlin to establish a "united front" against the bourgeoisie. The Socialist Party demanded that the Bolsheviks abandon the trial.The world revolution needed a "united front", so the Comintern delegation made arbitrarily guaranteed guarantees: the trial would be open; The most important one of the rights (to the communists this is a big deal, but the socialists also agreed): the trial will be sentenced to death.
The Socialist leaders rejoiced: they decided to represent the accused themselves.Lenin (who was living out the last weeks before his first stroke and didn't know it yet) reacted harshly in Pravda: "We have given too much." How can one promise not Sentenced to death, and traitors of society admitted to our courts?As we shall see later, Trotsky also fully agreed with him, and Bukharin soon expressed his remorse.The German Communist Party's "Red Flag" commented that the Bolsheviks were idiots if they thought they had to fulfill their obligations: the problem was that the "United Front" had collapsed in Germany, so all the original promises had been given in vain.But the communists had already begun to understand the infinite power of their own historic methods by then.The trial date is approaching, and in May, Pravda wrote: "We will do exactly what we are doing. But outside the courtroom, these gentlemen should be placed under conditions that will guarantee our country from the seditious tactics of these scoundrels." At the end of May, the famous socialists Vanderveld, Rosenfeld, Toddor Liebknecht (brother of the murdered Karl) set off for Moscow with such accompaniment.
From the frontier station, and at all the stops, the carriages of the Socialists were stormed by angry demonstrating working masses, demanding an account of their counter-revolutionary attempts, and Vanderveld's account of why he had done so at the predatory Treaty of Versailles. signature?Or they smashed the glass of the car and threatened to slap them several times.But the grandest welcome was at Vyndav Station in Moscow: the square was packed with demonstrators holding banners, leading bands and singing songs.Large placards read: "Mr. Vanderveld, Minister of the King! When will you be tried by the Revolutionary Court?" "Cain, Cain, where is your brother Karl?" "When the foreigners left the station, the crowd shouted, whistled, meowed, threatened, and sang in unison:
Here comes a Vanderveld,
Here comes a world bitch.
Of course you are welcome.
My friends, what a pity, what a pity,
Can't hang him here.
(At this point an embarrassing incident occurred: Rosenfeld spotted in the crowd Bukharin, happily whistling with his finger in his mouth.) In the days that followed, puppet troupes rode in colorful floats Performed along the streets of Moscow, the open-air stage next to the bronze statue of Pushkin played non-stop with plays depicting the treachery of the Socialist Revolutionaries and their defenders.Trotsky and other orators split off to demand the death penalty for the Socialist-Revolutionaries in incendiary speeches, followed by party and non-party workers' votes. (At that time, I already knew a lot of ways: when a large number of people were unemployed, those who disagreed were expelled from the factory, and his labor supply was canceled. This is not to mention the Cheka.) Voted.Various factories submitted petitions calling for the death penalty one after another, and these petitions and the number of signatures filled the pages of every newspaper. (Indeed, some people who disagreed had to be arrested.)
Trial begins on June 8.There were thirty-two people on trial, of which twenty-two were brought from Butyrka, and ten who expressed repentance were no longer escorted. Bukharin himself and several members of the Comintern acted for these people. defend. (Bukharin and Pyatakov, having fun in the same court comedy, do not feel the taunt of fate that loves to stay behind. But fate also leaves time for consideration. Fifteen years each life, and Krylenko too.) Pyatakov stiffened and refused to allow the accused to speak.Lunacharski, Poklovski, and Clara Zetkin supported the prosecution. (Krylenko's wife, who also signed the indictment, presided over the investigation as a family effort.)
The number of observers was not less than 1,200, but only 22 relatives of the 22 defendants were among them. The rest were all Communist Party members, modified Cheka personnel, and selected audiences.The speeches of the defendant and the defense were often interrupted by shouts from the audience.The interpreter distorted the words of the trial court to the defense, and the defense's words to the trial court. The court dismissed the defense's request in a mocking tone, the defense witnesses were not allowed to enter, and the shorthand records were made so that people could not recognize their own speeches.
At the first trial, Pyatakov announced that the court would not adopt any impartial attitude in the trial, and was determined to act in full accordance with the consideration of the interests of the Soviet regime.
A week later, foreign defenders made comments to the court without proper measure, saying that it seemed to violate the Berlin agreement. In the end, the court proudly replied that it was a court and could not be bound by any agreement.
The Socialist apologists were completely discouraged.Their presence in this court can only create the illusion of normal proceedings, they gave up their defense and now just want to go back to Europe but they won't let them go.These prominent guests had to declare a hunger strike!It was only after this that they were allowed to leave on June 19th.It's a pity, because they missed the most impressive scene on June 20, the anniversary of Volodarsky's assassination.
Teams from various factories were assembled (some factories closed the gates to prevent workers from sneaking in beforehand, some factories confiscated exit passes, and some places gave a free meal), and the flags and placards read "Death to the Defendant", Needless to say, the military team.A mass meeting was held on Red Square.Pyatakov spoke, promising severe punishment, Krylenko, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rajek, the whole elite of communist orators, spoke.Then the procession marched to the courthouse, and Pyatakov, who had returned there, ordered the accused to be brought to the wide-open windows facing the stormy crowd.They stood there as insults and jeers came down like a hailstorm, and a sign reading "Death to the Socialist Revolutionary Party" fell on Goetz.All this took up five hours after get off work, and when it was already dark (mid-white night in Moscow), Pyatakov announced in the hall that the delegation from the mass meeting asked to come in.Krylenko explained that although there was no such provision in the law, it was entirely possible in the spirit of the Soviet regime.The delegation poured into the hall, where two hours of invective and intimidation were delivered, demanding the death penalty, while the judges listened, shook hands, thanked, and pledged no mercy.The atmosphere was so heated that the defendants and their relatives thought a lynching was about to be carried out on the spot. (Goetz, grandson of a wealthy tea merchant sympathetic to the revolution, such a successful Tsarist terrorist who murdered and stabbed Durnovo, Min, Riemann, Akimov, Shuvalov, La Chikovsky's participant, never in his fighting life had he fallen to such a point!) But the upsurge of popular indignation stopped here, although the court proceedings continued for a month and a half.A day later even the defenders of the Soviets left the courtroom (soon they too were due to be arrested and deported).
There are many familiar features of the future to be seen here, but the actions of the defendants are far from subdued, and they are not yet compelled to speak against themselves.The traditional self-delusional notion of left-wing parties that they are defenders of labor interests still supports them.After the years of compromise and surrender lost in vain, a belated fortitude returned to them.Defendant Belge accused the Bolsheviks of shooting and killing marchers defending the Constituent Assembly; again, Liberov said bluntly: "I admit that my fault is that I did not do enough to overthrow the Bolsheviks in 1918." (No. p. 3) Yevgeny Ratner said the same thing, and Berg added: "I consider myself guilty of the Russian workers for not being able to fight with all my strength against the so-called workers' and peasants' regime, but I hope that My time hasn't passed." (It's gone. Honey, it's gone.)
There's that old fondness for loud words here - but there's also a toughness to it.
The Prosecutor General argued that the defendants were a danger to Soviet Russia because they believed that everything they had done in the past was a good thing. "Perhaps some of the interrogators comforted themselves with the thought that sometime in the future history writers would praise them or commend their conduct in court."
The decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee after the trial also stated that they "reserved the right to continue" their previous activities during the trial.
Defendant Hendelman Grabowski (himself a jurist) behaved differently in court, he and Krylenko discussed the falsification of witness statements, the "special method of treating witnesses before trial" - The sentence can be read as: Arguing over issues such as the fact that the witnesses were clearly dealt with by the State Political Security Bureau in advance (at this time, the whole set is already available! The full set is available! If you pay more attention, you can reach the ideal state).It turned out that the pre-trial work was carried out under the supervision of the Prosecutor General (that is, Krylenko), and individual inconsistencies in the statements were deliberately eliminated.There were also statements made for the first time during court sessions.
Of course there are bound to be rough spots.There are bound to be omissions.But at the end of the day "we should state with complete clarity and sobriety that . . . we are not interested in how the courts of history will judge our actions."
As for the roughness, we will consider and correct it.
But for the time being, Krylenko, trying to get out of the situation, probably remembered for the first and last time the word investigation in Soviet jurisprudence!Preliminary investigation before reconnaissance!Look, how well he said it: the old work that was not supervised by the Attorney General and was considered by you to be an investigation was called an investigation.The current work of tying the ropes and tightening the screws under the supervision of the Chief Prosecutor is considered by you to be re-investigation. This is exactly the investigation!Disorganized "investigative agency materials that have not been investigated and tested, compared with investigative materials" (if properly directed), "the value of litigation evidence is much smaller." (page 328)
It's ingenious, it's seamless.
To be honest, Krylenko should feel aggrieved. He spent half a year preparing for the trial, shouted for two months during the trial, and spent fifteen hours reading his indictment. In fact, all these defendants "fell more than once or twice into the hands of the anti-revolutionary agencies, and at a time when these agencies were very powerful; but for one reason or another they saved their lives". (p. 322) And now leave it to Krylenko to legally take them to be shot.
Of course, "the verdict should be one and only one shot!" But Krylenko magnanimously added that the case was, after all, under the eyes of the whole world, and that what the Attorney General said "was not an issue for the court." Instructions," and if they were instructions, the court "must follow them." (page 319)
What a court, if this needs to be explained to it! ...
Prosecutors suggested that the defendant should declare repentance and resign from the party after the shooting.All refused.
So the court showed unscrupulousness in its judgment: it really didn't pronounce "everyone left" by shooting, but only sentenced fourteen people to be shot.The rest of the prisons, labor camps, and hundreds of people "separately set up special cases for trial."
Remember, reader: All the rest of the courts of the republic look to the "Supreme Court, [which] gives them directions" (p. 407) The decisions of the "High Court" are taken "as indicative file" treatment. (Page 409) It is up to you to think about how many more people will be brought in from various places.
It seems that it is worthwhile for the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee to exercise the right to commute the entire trial.The court judgment was first sent to the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) conference, at which it was proposed that deportation be replaced by shooting.But Trotsky, Stalin, and Bukharin proposed (it was a three-person group, and they agreed): within 24 hours, they would be sentenced to five years of exile, otherwise they would be executed immediately.Kamenev's proposal was adopted and became the decision of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee; the death penalty was approved, but execution was suspended.The fate of the convicted depends on the behavior of the Socialist-Revolutionaries who remain outside (obviously including abroad).If the Socialist-Revolutionaries continued with even an underground conspiracy, let alone an armed struggle, the twelve would have been shot.
Thus tortured them with death: any day might be the day to be shot.They were hid in Lubinka from Butyrka, which still had access to the outside world, and their rights to meet, communicate, and deliver items were deprived. However, the wives of several people were immediately arrested and sent out of Moscow.
Already for the second time, peacetime crops are being harvested in Russian fields.No gunshots can be heard anywhere except in the Cheka yard (killed Perhurov in Yaroslavl, Archbishop Vennemin in Petrograd. And it will go on, on, and on...).At this time, our first diplomats and journalists were sailing between the blue sky and the blue sea, going abroad to take up their duties.But the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers and Peasants' Deputies kept in its arms a lifelong hostage.
Members of the ruling party read sixty issues of Pravda, which reported on the trial (they all read it), and they all said yes, yes, yes.No one said a word of no.
Therefore, what is there to be surprised about them in 1937?What is there to complain about? ...Has not all the foundations of lawlessness been laid at first with the non-judicial sanctions of the Cheka, with the judicial sanctions of the Revolutionary Court-Martial, and later with these early trials and this juvenile code?Wasn't 1937 also appropriate (for Stalin's purposes, perhaps also for historical purposes)?
Kholenkot.It was foreseen to say that they judged not the past but the future.
It's just that it takes a little effort to swing the first scythe.
Around August 20, 1924, Boris Viktorovich Savinkov entered the Soviet Union.He was immediately arrested and transported to Lubinka.
There has been much speculation about this return.But not long ago a man named Ardamatsky (who was apparently connected to the Kögler archives and characters) published a piece of literary nonsense that contained some affectation, but still seemed close to the real historical story. (Neva Magazine, Issue 11, 1967).The State Political Security Bureau drew in some of Savinkov's agents, and coaxed others, through which they cast a solid hook: they spread the word that there was a huge underground organization in Russia Suffering without proper leaders!This is the most attractive bait.What's more, Savinkov is by no means willing to end his troubled life "quietly" in Nice.
The whole investigation was just one interrogation and it was all voluntary confessions and evaluations of activities.The indictment was filed on August 23rd. (The speed was unbelievable, but it had an effect. Someone must have correctly estimated that forcing Savinkov to make pathetic false confessions would only destroy the impression of credibility.)
In the indictment, which was carefully concocted in black-and-white terms, Savinkov was charged with all-encompassing charges: "the out-and-out enemy of the poorest peasants"; was in favor of continuing the war against Germany); "associated with representatives of the Allied Command" (he held the post of Military Undersecretary at the time!); "provocatively participated in the Soldiers' Council" (referring to having been elected to the committee by soldiers' representatives) ; There is also a crime of "having a good impression of the monarchy" that makes people laugh out loud.But these are old tricks.There are also some new tricks that will be indispensable for all future trials: taking money from the imperialists; spying for Poland (leaving out Japan! . . . ); and trying to poison the Red Army with potassium cyanide ( But not one Red Army soldier was poisoned).
The trial began on August 26.The presiding judge is Ulrich (here we meet him for the first time), but there is neither prosecutor nor defender.Savinkov said very little in his defense, and his defense was lazy, and he hardly disputed the evidence.The following tune seemed very suitable, and it hit the defendant's heartstrings: We and you are Russians!You are with us this is us!You love Russia, there is no doubt about it, we respect your patriotic feelings but don't we?Are we not the power and glory of Russia now?And you want to turn against us?Repent! ...
But the strangest thing was the verdict: "The application of capital punishment was not necessary to protect the interests of the revolutionary order, and at the same time it was considered that the motive of revenge could not guide the legal consciousness of the proletarian masses" decided to replace the shooting with ten years of deprivation of liberty.
It was sensational, which baffled many at the time: softening?degenerate?Ulrich even explained the reasons for pardoning Savinkov in Pravda and expressed his apology.Yes, how strong our Soviet power has grown in seven years!Is it still afraid of a Savinkov! （而在二十周年的时候它将会变得弱起来，请勿见怪，我们将枪毙几十万人。）
继归国之谜以后，这项非死刑判决又成了第二个谜。（布尔采夫解释，他们欺骗萨温科夫，说在国家政治保卫局里存在着某些准备与社会革命党结盟的反对派组织，他本人将被释放并被吸收参加活动，他部分地是因此上了当，所以走上了和侦查人员勾结的道路。）审判之后，准许萨温科夫……向国外发公开信，包括给布尔采夫，其中要流亡的革命党人相信，布尔什维克的政权是立足于人民的支持之上的，进行反对它的斗争是不可容许的。
一九二五年五月，两个谜却被第三个谜压倒了：萨温科夫在阴郁情绪的支配下从未安装防护物的窗户跳到卢宾卡的内院，而国家政治保卫局人员守护天使们当时没法子截住他，结果一命呜呼。但是，萨温科夫留下了一份为他们开脱责任的凭据，以防万一（免得引起职务上的麻烦），对自杀的原因作了合情合理头头是道的说明信编写得那么可信，那么合乎萨温科夫的气质和笔法，使人们完全相信：除了他本人外谁也不能写出这样的信来，他是在意识到政治破产的情况下自杀的。（见多识广的布尔采夫就这样把发生的一切都归结为萨温科夫的背叛上，就这样无论对信件的真实性，对自杀都没有感到任何可疑。任何的洞察力都是有限度的。）
我们，我们这些傻瓜，卢宾卡晚来的囚犯们，也轻信地学舌说：卢宾卡楼梯并扎上的铁网是从萨温科夫在这里跳楼以后绷上的。我们被这个美丽的传说所征服而忘记了：狱吏们的经验是国际性的！在美国的监狱里本世纪之初就有了铁网苏联的技术怎能落后呢？
在一九三七年，一个过去的契卡人员阿尔图尔?普留贝尔在科雷马垂死的时候向旁边的一个人说，他是把萨温科夫从五层楼窗口扔到卢宾卡院子里的四个人中间的一个！（而这是同阿尔达马茨基现在的叙述不相矛盾的；这个低矮的窗台，几乎像是阳台的门槛，而不是窗子特意选择的房间！只是在阿尔达马茨基的文章里，守护天使们在那里发呆，而依普留贝尔的说法是一齐扑了上去。）
这样，第二个谜仁慈得异乎寻常的判决之谜，就被粗鲁的第三个谜解开了。
这个传闻十分隐约，但我是听到了，而我在一九六七年又把它告诉了M?H?雅库博维奇，他还保留着年轻人的活跃劲头，眼睛闪闪发光地惊叫起来："我信！正好对上头！我以前却没有相信布留姆金说的话，以为他是吹牛皮。"事情弄清楚了：在20年代末期，布留姆金曾经非常机密地告诉雅库博维奇，所谓萨温科夫的临终遗书，是他布留姆金根据国家政治保卫局的指使写的。原来，萨温科夫被关着的时候，布留姆金可以经常出入他的监室傍晚给萨温科夫"散散心"（萨温科夫是否感觉到这是死神上门一个善于讨好、态度亲切的死神，你猜不出他将会叫你怎么死法）。布留姆金靠这个办法熟悉了萨温科夫的讲话和思想的风格，掌握了他最后的一些想法。
人们要问，为什么要从窗里扔出去呢？毒死不更简单吗？大概因为遗骸要给什么人看，或者事先考虑过要给什么人看。
这里正好接着把布留姆金的遭遇说完。当他还是一个气焰万丈的契卡人员的时候，曼德尔施塔姆曾以大无畏的精神给过他当头一律。爱伦堡动手写过布留姆金忽然感到害臊不写了。其实是有东西可写的。一九一八年粉碎了左派社会革命党人以后，他这个杀害米尔巴赫的凶手不仅没有受到惩罚，不仅没有落到所有左派社会革命党人的共同下场，反而被捷尔任斯基保护起来（正像他曾想保护科瑟列夫一样），外表上变成了布尔什维克。养着他看来是为了叫他去干一些重大的湿活。有一次，在30年代初，他曾到国外去进行暗杀活动。然而，冒险主义的本性或对托洛茨基的钦佩使他跑到了太子岛去一；问问这个宗教课程教师有没有带到苏联去的任务？托洛茨基要他带给拉狄克一封信。布留姆金带回来转交了，如果正得意的拉狄克不是当时已经当了眼线，那末布留姆金去见托洛茨基的事，就会永远没人知道。但是拉狄克毁坏了布留姆金，于是这个人便被拉狄克本人曾亲手用最初的血乳喂养起来的怪物的大嘴吞了进去。
然而所有主要的和著名的审判都在前面……