Vlasov was arrested very late in comparison with the others who were charged in the same case. The case had been nearly completed without him, and it was in process of being set up as an open trial. They took him to the Ivanovo NKVD Internal Prison, but, since he was the last to be involved, he was not subjected to any heavy pressure. He was interrogated twice. There was no supporting testimony from witnesses. And the file of his interrogation was filled with summary reports of the District Consumer Cooperative and clips from the district newspaper. Vlasov was charged with: (1) initiating bread lines; (2) having an inadequate minimum assortment of merchandise (just as though the unavailable merchandise existed somewhere else and someone had offered it to Kady); (3) procuring a surplus of salt (but this was the obligatory “mobilization” reserve: ever since ancient times people in Russia have been afraid of being without salt in the event of war).
At the end of September, the defendants were brought to Kady for public trial. It was not a short trip. (Remember how cheap the OSO’s and the closed courts were!) From Ivanovo to Kineshma they went in a Stolypin railway car; then seventy miles from Kineshma to Kady in automobiles. There were more than ten cars, an unusual file along an old, deserted road, and one that aroused astonishment, fear, and the expectation of war in the villages. Klyugin, the Chief of the Special Secret Department of the Provincial NKVD for Counter-Revolutionary Organizations, was responsible for the faultless organization of the whole trial and for terrifying the public with it. Their convoy consisted of forty guards from the reserves of the mounted police, and every day from September 24 to 27, with swords unsheathed and Naguan revolvers at the ready, they took the prisoners from the District NKVD to the still unfinished club building and back, through the village where they had until recently been the government. Windows had already been installed in the club, but the stage had not yet been finished. There was no electricity. There was no electricity in Kady at all. After nightfall the court met by the light of kerosene lamps. The spectators were brought in from the collective farms in rotation. And all Kady crowded in as well. Not only did they sit on window sills and benches, but they stood packed in the aisles, seven hundred of them at a time. (Russians have always loved spectacles.) The forward benches were regularly reserved for Communists to provide the court with dependable support.
A Special Assize of the provincial court had been constituted, consisting of Deputy Chairman of the Provincial Court Shubin, who presided, and members Biche and Zaozerov. The provincial prosecutor Karasik, a graduate of Dorpat University, was in charge of the prosecution. And even though all the accused declined defense lawyers, a government lawyer was forced on them so that the case wouldn’t be left without a prosecutor. The formal indictment, solemn, menacing, and lengthy, came down in essence to the charge that an underground Rightist Bukharinite group had existed in Kady District, which had been formed in Ivanovo (in other words, you could expect arrests in Ivanovo too), and had as its purpose the overthrow by wrecking of the Soviet government in the village of Kady (and this was about the remotest boondock in all Russia the rightists could have found for a starting point!).
The prosecutor petitioned the court to have Stavrov’s testimony, given before his death in prison, read to the court and accepted as evidence. In fact, the whole charge against the group was based on Stavrov’s evidence. The court agreed to include the testimony of the deceased, just as if he were alive. (With the advantage, however, that none of the defendants could refute it.)
But darkest Kady did not appreciate these scholarly fine points. It waited to see what came next. The testimony of Stavrov, who had been killed under interrogation, was read to the court and once again became part of the record. The questioning of the defendants began—and immediately there was chaos. All of them repudiated the testimony they had given during the interrogation.
It is not clear how, in such an event, things would have been arranged in the October Hall of the House of the Unions in Moscow—but here, at any rate, it was decided shamelessly to continue. The judge rebuked the defendants: How could you have given different testimony during the interrogation? Univer, very weak, replied in a barely audible voice: “As a Communist I cannot, in a public trial, describe the interrogation methods of the NKVD.” (Now there was a model for the Bukharin trial! Now that’s what keeps them together! More than anything else, they are worried that people might think ill of the Party. Their judges had long since stopped worrying about that.)
During the recess, Klyugin visited the cells of the defendants. He said to Vlasov: “You’ve heard how Smirnov and Univer played the whore, the bastards? You’ve got to admit your guilt and tell the whole truth!” “The truth and nothing but the truth,” willingly agreed Vlasov, who had not yet weakened. “The truth and nothing but the truth that you are every bit as bad as the German Fascists!” Klyugin flew into a rage: “Listen here, you whore, you’ll pay with your blood!”[254] From that moment Vlasov was pushed forward from a back seat among the defendants to a leading role in the trial—as the ideological leader of the group.
The crowd jamming the aisles grew interested whenever the court fearlessly broke into questions about bread lines—about things that touched everyone present to the quick. (And, of course, bread had been put on unrestricted sale just before the trial, and there were no bread lines that day.) A question to the accused Smirnov: “Did you know about the bread lines in the district?” “Yes, of course. They stretched from the store itself right up to the building of the District Party Committee.” “And what did you do about them?” Notwithstanding the tortures he had endured, Smirnov had preserved his resounding voice and tranquil righteousness. This broad-shouldered man with a simple face and light-brown hair answered slowly, and the whole hall heard every word he said: “Since all appeals to organizations in the provincial capital had failed, I instructed Vlasov to write a report to Comrade Stalin.” “And why didn’t you write it?” (They hadn’t yet known about it! They had certainly missed that one!) “We did write it, and I sent it by courier directly to the Central Committee, bypassing the provincial leaders. A copy was kept in the District Committee files.”
The whole courtroom held its breath. The court itself was in a commotion. They shouldn’t have continued questioning, but nonetheless someone asked: “And what happened?”
And, indeed, that question was on the lips of everyone in the courtroom: “What happened?”
Smirnov did not sob, did not groan over the death of his ideal (and that’s what was missing in the Moscow trials!). He replied loudly and calmly:
“Nothing. There was no answer”
And his tired voice seemed to say: Well, that, in fact, was just what I expected.
There was no answer. From the Father and Teacher there was no answer! The public trial had already reached its zenith! It had already shown the masses the black heart of the Cannibal! And the trial could have been called off right then and there. But, oh no, they didn’t have sense enough for that, or tact enough for that, and they kept rubbing away at the befouled spot for three more days.
254
39. Your own blood, too, is going to flow soon, Klyugin! Caught in the Yezhov gang of gaybisty, Klyugin will have his throat cut by the stool pigeon Gubaidulin.