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ABSTRACT
The essay is a close analysis of the text of the 1952 secret trial of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC). The trial was an occasion of high drama in which many of the participants, facing death, responded with speeches and spontaneous outbursts that could not serve as any imaginable defense, but constituted a moral evaluation of their lives. This behavior was much unlike anything seen in the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Though many JAFC defendants exhibited aspects of public self-examination and contrarian pride in their own self-worth, the three most persistent were Lina Shtern, Boris Shimeliovich, and Solomon Lozovsky.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Alice S. Nakhimovsky is Distinguished Chair in Jewish Studies and professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at Colgate University. Her last book, written with Roberta Newman, is Dear Mendel, Dear Rayzel: Yiddish letter manuals in Russia and America (Indiana University Press, 2014). It won a National Jewish Book Award for 2015. Most recently, she edited a book written by six of her students Repression, Reinvention, Rugelach: A History of Jews at Colgate (Colgate University Press, 2018), and, together with Michael Beizer, translated, annotated, and introduced the forthcoming Daughter of the Shtetl: the Memoirs of Doba-Mera Medvedeva (Academic Studies Press).
Notes
1. The fifteenth defendant, Solomon Bregman, collapsed during the trial and died on January 23, 1953, several months after the execution of his co-defendants on August 12, 1952.
2. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud. The volume, slightly abridged, was translated into English, with excellent introductions by Naumov and Rubenstein, Stalin's secret pogrom. Citations here are from the Russian edition; translations are mine.
3. Zuskina-Perel’man, Puteshestvie Veniaminadma, 376. The book has been translated into English: Zuskina-Perel’man, The travels of Benjamin Zuskin.
4. Kostyrchenko, V plenu u krasnogo faraonale); Sherman, “Seven-fold Betrayal”; Redlich et al., War, Holocaust, and Stalinisme, 5; Redlich, “The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR and the Authorities,” 353–59.
Joshua Rubenstein's introduction and notes to Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin's Secret Pogrom, stresses the painfully conflicted relationship of many of these writers to the USSR. Bergelson and Markish, had lived abroad and made a conscious decision to return. The idea of judicial theater is examined in Elizabeth Wood's Performing Justice: Agitation Trials in Early Soviet Russia. The difference here is that the early trials she describes are intentionally theatrical, for educative purposes. What makes the 1952 trial unusual is that the actors go off script.
5. Fenin, Vospominaniia inzhenera, 131–2. The raucous nature of the trial is evident from Walter Duranty's accounts in the New York Times on June 23, 24, 26, 28, 1928, in the course of which he refers to the “little scornful smile” on Rabinovich's “Hebraic face” and quotes Rabinovich saying that he sleeps well in prison, because of his clean conscience (“Don Trial Reaches Climax in Shrieks,” June 26, 1928), The government case as laid out by the prosecutor in Krylenko, Ekonomicheskaia kontrrevoliutsiia v Donbasse o does not reference either statement, though Krylenko, in his final speech, cites as particularly damning Rabinovich's assertion that “under Witte or some other tsarist minister you could always get a hearing, but under Soviet power it's impossible” (276).
6. In Robert Conquest gives numerous examples, with special attention to I.N. Smirnov, Ter-Vaganyan, and Mrachkovskii. The Great Terror: A Reassessment, 84–93, 120. In these and other cases, confessions were obtained after forceful resistance, but at trial, defendants were quiet. Smirnov retracted his confession at trial; see discussion in Getty and Naumov, The Road to Terror, 112. In 1952, with the exception of Shimeliovich, defendants “confessed” under investigation and retracted the confessions at trial.
7. “Stenogramma Bukharinsko-Trotskistskogo protsessa 2 marta 1938,” Hronos, accessed July 28, 2015, http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/1938buharin/utro2-3-38.php#prizn.
8. Only two defendants, Vatenberg and Hofshteyn, did not realize that their lives were at risk. Hofshteyn says he understood this only when he heard it, at the trial, from Lozovskii. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 117, 121. Ritual speech in Terror trials is discussed by Getty and Naumov, who make a distinction between constative speech, which rests on accuracy, and performative speech, which is formulaic. The Road to Terror, 14. Of particular interest is their examination of the reaction to Bukharin's failure to use formulaic speech at a CC meeting in February, 1937. Getty and Naumov, The Road to Terror, 136–7. In 1952, all defendants used performative speech to some degree, though some, Shtern in particular, unpacked it and others counter it in ways that are not strictly constative. Koestler's, Darkness at Noon; Conquest's, The Great Terror, 109–31, focus on self-sacrifice for the Party.
9. Alexander Nakhimovsky's essay in this volume discusses the orchestration of the trial in more detail; both his and Anna Schur's essays pay particular attention to its effect on Lina Shtern, who spoke last.
10. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 12. Why was there a transcript? Naumov suggests the instigator was Cheptsov, protecting himself against internal MVD intrigue. Another plausible audience was Stalin, who had paid close attention to the investigation, going so far as to suggest questions. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 8, 10.
11. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 176; similarly, 138, 271.
12. Because Grossman was writing a novel – or because he was searching for something more transcendent than resoluteness – Life and Fate poses strength of will as necessary, but sufficient only when accompanied by someone's loving kindness. In 1952, love was not part of the picture.
13. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 26.
14. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 100.
15. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 51, 54.
16. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 311. Her point is correct with respect to dictionary meaning but not with respect to political usage, in which the terms “nationalist” and “cosmopolitan” were functionally equivalent: both meant that Jews were outside the norm and not to be trusted. Later, Shtern attempts a rebuttal in standard Marxist terms (having no territory, Jews cannot be nationalist), to which Cheptsov replies “I’m asking you a question, and you’re giving me a lecture about Jews.” Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 315.
17. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 315.
18. Ia L. Rapoport, in his memoir Na rubezhe dvukh epokhov, 237, says that Shtern was on some occasions actually naïve, and on other occasions pretended. B.V. Malkin also draws attention to her naiveté: “Trudnye gody Liny Shtern,” in V. Kumanev, Tragicheskie sud’bye), 160, 174. Rubenstein notes this also, Stalin's Secret Pogrom, 320.
19. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 165.
20. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 23.
21. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 61.
22. Ibid.
23. “Strictly observant atheists” is a paraphrase of Alla Zuskina-Perelman's comment about the Moscow Jewish intelligentsia among with whom she grew up: “za sobliudeniem kanonov ateizma strogo sledili,” Puteshestvie Veniamina, 34.
24. Joseph Sherman also singles out this remarkable passage in “A Note on Bergelson's Obsolescence.” He explains it as an instance of Aesopian language (for some future reader of the secret transcript?) I did not see any instances of Aesopian language in the transcripts, either in Bergelson's testimony or anyone else's. I think a more likely explanation is what I have defined as “slippage” – Bergelson tries to adhere to current political language and policy, but cannot sustain it because his emotional ties carry him elsewhere.
25. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 76. For the place of this holiday in Bergelson's fiction and his ties to Jewish “memory culture,” see the essay by Harriet Murav.
26. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 34.
27. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 30.
28. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 192.
29. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 200. Shimeliovich uses the word “sluzhka;” his father was probably a gabbai.
30. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 142.
31. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 19–30, 108.
32. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 22.
33. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 177. The initiative of Shimeliovich, Fefer, and Mikhoels in the aftermath of the Holocaust and postwar pogroms was to resettle Jewish survivors on agricultural settlements in Northern Crimea. The idea reached a non-committal Molotov and remained on the back burner until repurposed for the trial.
34. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 210, 214.
35. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 289–90.
36. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 91–2.
37. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 120.
38. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 290.
39. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 332.
40. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 321. The extreme psychological distress – madness – was of course real. Nadezhda Ulanovskaia, who was interrogated in Lefortovo at the same time as the defendants, recalls suffering from hallucinations over several weeks. Maia Ulanovskaia and Nadezhda Ulanovskaia, Istoriia odnoi sem’i, http://royallib.com/book/ulanovskaya_mayya/istoriya_odnoy_semi.html.
41. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 194. Naumov gives evidence that Lozovskii was in fact beaten.
42. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 195. There is a similar line from Bergelson: “when I gave that evidence I thought, better exaggerate, and the court will figure it out.” Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 121.
43. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 198.
44. Rapoport, Na rubezhe dvukh epokhov, 254. Lina Shtern stayed with Rapoport and his wife for a few days following her return to Moscow from exile in Dzhambul. In his account, Shtern's recollections of what she and others said at the trial are almost word-for-word the same as the transcripts, to which he had no access. The one thing he gets wrong is that it was, in fact, a trial: he believes it was a kind of witness confrontation (аochnaia stavka).
45. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 70–1.
46. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 155.
47. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 311.
48. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 141.
49. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 55.
50. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 216. An example of targeting Mikhoels is the following exchange between Cheptsov and Bergelson:
Presiding Judge: Mikhoels played the role of a Soviet patriot but at the same time in his soul he was a nationalist? Bergelson: Yes, he was a nationalist and played the role of a Soviet-Jewish patriot, but he was more sincere when he was playing the nationalist. In that role, notes of sincerity slipped through. When he started playing the nationalist, he became himself. And he was the most himself when he committed crimes. (83–184)
51. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 59.
52. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 66–7.
53. Rapoport, Na rubezhe dvukh epokhov, 254.
54. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 122.
55. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 153; Rapoport, Na rubezhe dvukh epokhov, 254.
56. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 215.
57. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 217.
58. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 304.
59. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 201, 138.
60. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 134–5. The last paragraph of Iusefovich's testimony is another apology to Lozovskii in which he castigates himself for behaving in a cowardly way during the investigation (141). In a closed session, he says that he was beaten (235). His little adopted daughter had been orphaned in the Holocaust.
61. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 151.
62. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 138.
63. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 81.
64. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 195, 332.
65. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 125.
66. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 120.
67. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 91.
68. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 252–3.
69. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 253.
70. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 250. Complicating this story was the fact brought up during the trial that Talmi's own son had been arrested for harboring seditious literature (261–2).
71. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 272.
72. Ibid.
73. When prompted to withdraw her former support for “Mendelists” at a VASKHNIL conference in September 1948, she said that she was unfortunately not competent in genetics. She then argued for what we would call the marketplace of ideas. Malkin, “Trudnye gody Liny Shtern,” 165.
74. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 311.
75. Burke, Martens, and Faucher, “Two Decades of Terror Management Theoryh.”
76. Bergelson, Mides hadin. An English translation by Harriet Murav and Sasha Senderovich, with the title “Justice,” is forthcoming from the World Classics series, Northwestern University Press, 2017. The Russian title is Mera strogosti. It was staged by Mikhoels in 1933, in a more straightforward fashion. Gennady Estraikh, “Bergelson in and on America.”
77. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 80.
78. On ambiguities within the work, see Harriet Murav, Music From a Speeding Train, 62–4.
79. Bergelson, Prints Ruveni. In his discussion of this work, Jeffrey Veidlinger notes that the play invokes the concept of the Third Rome, which in its Russian context could signal Bergelson's indictment of the Soviet Union and calls attention to its powerful use of religious language,“Prints Reuveni in Historical Context,” 269–84. The Inquisition analogy is broached at the trial, but by Lozovskii. See Anna Schur's essay for more discussion on the dilemma of writers.
80. Rubenstein, Stalin's Secret Pogrom, 233.
81. Shamberg, Lozovskii, 408–44.
82. Rapoport, Na rubezhe dvukh epokhov, 237. Iuszefovich, in the midst of attesting to Lozovskii's absence of nationalism, says that he was egotistical. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 131; Shamberg, Lozovskii, 6.
83. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 320, 332.
84. “Iz protokola doprosa G.M. Malenkovym i M.F. SHkiriatovym S.A. Lozovskogo, 13 ianvaria 1949 g.” Dokumenty XX veka, accessed February 4, 2014, http://doc20vek.ru/node/2191.
85. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 8.
86. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 208.
87. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 147.
88. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 93.
89. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 94.
90. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 320.
91. Naumov and Rubenstein, Stalin's secret pogrom, 286, gives more information about Iulii Shimiliovich. The Yiddish writer M. Daniel (father of the well-known dissident writer Iulii Daniel, named after the hero) wrote the play Four Days about Iulii Shimiliovich's valiant self-sacrifice. It was staged in 1931 at Mikhoels's State Jewish Theater. The production is discussed at the trial.
92. Naumov, Nepravednyi sud, 141–2.