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Anatomy of a show trial
Documents ANATOMY
OF A SHOW
TRIAL
During Czechoslovakia’s short “spring,” Nova Mysl, the theoretical organ of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, published a series of articles dealing with the political trials of the 1950s. The author, Dr. Karel Kaplan, Fellow of the Historical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, had access to extensive documentary materials in the archives of the Central Committee. Based on these, his study offers the fust coherent treatment of the anatomy of a political show trial. What Dr. Kaplan discovered in this painfully honest confrontation with the past had often been guessed at but hitherto never explicitly demonstrated: the political trials of the postwar period, instituted after Tito’s heresy and defection, were the principal instrument whereby the Soviet Union established complete domination over the East European people’s democracies. This was their main purpose. The search for “Tito’s accomplices” provided the opportunity to plant Soviet advisers within the Czechoslovak security services and bring them under the control of the NKVD. Step by step they freed themselves from all effective supervision by governmental and party agencies. Charged with the preparation of cases against leading functionaries based on forced confessions and manufactured evidence, the security services developed a momentum of their own. Keeping files on, and assembling evidence against, every single leading official, they established themselves in strategic positions that gave them a wide choice of possible “suspects” and considerable discretion over the direction of their investigations. The highest party officials, the very initiators of the investigations such as Slansky, Svab and Taussigova, became the victims of the machinery they themselves had set in motion. Even Gottwald, the President of the republic and Chairman of the party, who had first tried to stem the tide, lost control of it. He, not Slansky, had formulated the concept of a “Czechoslovak specific and peaceful road to socialism” which the Cominform condemned as a “return to capitalism,” and Gottwald, fearing Stalin’s wrath, chose to submit and sacrifice Slansky as a scapegoat. 1 Thus, the NKVD not only stage-managed all political trials on Czech soil but, having taken control of the trials and See Eugm Leebl and Dust Pokomy, Die Amolution Europa Verlag, 1968). p. 41. According to the authors, actions pre ared against the Prime Minister, V. Siroky, Dolansky, I!!eprcka and Novotny. lbfd., p. 63.
Rehabititiert dossiers were and Presidium
Ike Kinder (Vienna: assembled and criminal members Zapotocky,
95
STUDIES
IN COMPARATIVE
chosen its victims, obtained, vakia.
in fact, control
COMMUNISM over political
life in Czechoslo-
One of the unsolved riddles of the trials of the Old Bolsheviks during the thirties was that of the means used to induce so many of them to confess to the most heinous and absurd crimes. The abject admissions of guilt, the nauseating and repetitious recitations of mea culpa by once proud, powerful and strong men in open court could not be fully explained by the use of torture alone. Kaplan’s findings seem to support-in Czechoslovakia, at any rate-Arthur Koestler’s intuitive insight into the psychological factors, the complex syndrome of motivations, presented in his novel Dorkmrss af Noon? nearly thirty years ago. Bacilek, the then Czechoslovak minister of justice, found it expedient to visit political prisoners in their cells to persuade them that by admitting their “guilt” they could render a last redeeming service to the party. The NKVDtrained torturers knew that they could not rely on their grisly handiwork alone. The victims had to be provided with a psychological justification to minimize the risk of later public repudiation;3 the use of force alone might not have assured a smooth performance at a public trial. Thus, devotion to the Communist Party, the appea1 to martyrdom for the cause, were used with great success as both rationale and rationalization. Recourse to “high principles” provided a public explanation for the defendants’ readiness to confess. Yet many problems raised by the political trials remain unresolved. Directed against “bourgeois nationalists.” the investigations were soon to change objectives and ctdminated in a violent assault against “Zionists” and “cosmopolitans.” What caused this v&e face? Reasons of state arising out of changing political conditions in the Middle East do not seem to supply a full explanation. More likely, anti-Semitism and anti-cosmopolitanism were seen as useful devices in attempting to isolate the communist East from dangerous contacts with the world outside. Also there always looms the residual irrationality of anti-Jewish feeling, rooted in history and in the personality make-up of some of the leading men involved.4 In the last and third part of the study, which deals chiefly with the aftereffects of the trials on the party and the system and with problems arising from the rehabilitation of the surviving victims, Karel Kaplan poses the question of Stalin’s intentions and his ability to retain effective control over the course of the trials and the machinations of the NKVD. The author ZArthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (New York: The MacmiIIan Company, 1940). Gee also Loebl and Pokomy, op. cit., p. 20, for a similar view concerning the techniques of extracting confessions. ~532, for example, Stalin’s violent reaction to the discovery that his daughter had fallen in love vath a Jew. Svetlana AUiIuyeva. Twetlty Letters to a Friend (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). pp. 179-81.
96
admits that the evidence available does not warrant any definite conclusions. Stalin’s published messages to Gottwald concerning Slansky’s fate are highly ambiguous and open to conflicting interpretations. Was Stalin aware of the trap prepared for Slansky by the state security? Did Slansky fall prey to the purges of Zhdanov’s friends and followers which Beria and Malenkov set in motion after Zhdanov’s death in 194876 The impression seems to be gaining ground that in his declining years Stalin had come fully under the influence of Beria, his “evil genius,” and that he lost control over the machinery he had created.0 This would tend to support the view that Beria had engineered Slansky’s downfall, perhaps without Stalin’s approval or beyond his intention. The answer to these and many other questions will have to be. deferred until access is obtained to sources that are at present unavailable for examination.-Henry B. Brompton GEdward Tabonky, Communi.sm in Czechoskmakia, 1948-1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). p. 106: “While it is di5cult to prove that Slansky was Zbdanov’s prot&5, the two had been in frequent contact in Commform affairs. Since Slansky wns also the KSJ’s [CPCSI main representative at the Corninform, be was closer to the Soviet Cominform boss [Zhdanovl than any other high-ranking Czecboslovak Communist. One may also note that tbe sudden rehabilitation of Klement Gothvald coincided with Zbdanov’s eclipse in tbe Summer of 1948.” 6See Svetlana Alliluyeva, op. cit., pp. 136-38, and tbe recently published “Excerpts from a Draft Letter Written at Some Time During tbe First Months of 1945,” by George F. Kennan, Slavic Reoiew, Vol. 23, No. 3, September 1968 p. 481-84 supporting this view. Also, Boris Nicolaevsky, Power and the Soviet Elite (New ‘Ark: Fred&k A. Praeger, 1965). p. 257.
‘THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POLITICAL
TRIALS’
Selections from parts one and two of a study by Karel Kaplan of the CzechoSlovak show trials of the 1950s; they were printed in Nova Mysl, Nos. 6 and 7, June 5 and July 10, 1968. The translation is by Henry B. Brompton. . . . .
I am aware that it is not possible to present a completely unbiased picture of the political trials; however, L shall attempt to present as comprehensive a report as possible. I shall endeavor to place
the trials inside a large framework in order to make them easier to understand. For that reason I have decided to approach them by commenting on documents (taken primarily from the archives of the CC of the CPCS). I shall try to abstain from forcing my views on the reader . . . . . . The first [part] is an attempt to uncover the roots, the origins of the conditions that led to the main political trials; the second will consist of a description of the preparations and the conduct of the trials . . . 97
OF A SHOW
TRIAL
During Czechoslovakia’s short “spring,” Nova Mysl, the theoretical organ of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee, published a series of articles dealing with the political trials of the 1950s. The author, Dr. Karel Kaplan, Fellow of the Historical Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, had access to extensive documentary materials in the archives of the Central Committee. Based on these, his study offers the fust coherent treatment of the anatomy of a political show trial. What Dr. Kaplan discovered in this painfully honest confrontation with the past had often been guessed at but hitherto never explicitly demonstrated: the political trials of the postwar period, instituted after Tito’s heresy and defection, were the principal instrument whereby the Soviet Union established complete domination over the East European people’s democracies. This was their main purpose. The search for “Tito’s accomplices” provided the opportunity to plant Soviet advisers within the Czechoslovak security services and bring them under the control of the NKVD. Step by step they freed themselves from all effective supervision by governmental and party agencies. Charged with the preparation of cases against leading functionaries based on forced confessions and manufactured evidence, the security services developed a momentum of their own. Keeping files on, and assembling evidence against, every single leading official, they established themselves in strategic positions that gave them a wide choice of possible “suspects” and considerable discretion over the direction of their investigations. The highest party officials, the very initiators of the investigations such as Slansky, Svab and Taussigova, became the victims of the machinery they themselves had set in motion. Even Gottwald, the President of the republic and Chairman of the party, who had first tried to stem the tide, lost control of it. He, not Slansky, had formulated the concept of a “Czechoslovak specific and peaceful road to socialism” which the Cominform condemned as a “return to capitalism,” and Gottwald, fearing Stalin’s wrath, chose to submit and sacrifice Slansky as a scapegoat. 1 Thus, the NKVD not only stage-managed all political trials on Czech soil but, having taken control of the trials and See Eugm Leebl and Dust Pokomy, Die Amolution Europa Verlag, 1968). p. 41. According to the authors, actions pre ared against the Prime Minister, V. Siroky, Dolansky, I!!eprcka and Novotny. lbfd., p. 63.
Rehabititiert dossiers were and Presidium
Ike Kinder (Vienna: assembled and criminal members Zapotocky,
95
STUDIES
IN COMPARATIVE
chosen its victims, obtained, vakia.
in fact, control
COMMUNISM over political
life in Czechoslo-
One of the unsolved riddles of the trials of the Old Bolsheviks during the thirties was that of the means used to induce so many of them to confess to the most heinous and absurd crimes. The abject admissions of guilt, the nauseating and repetitious recitations of mea culpa by once proud, powerful and strong men in open court could not be fully explained by the use of torture alone. Kaplan’s findings seem to support-in Czechoslovakia, at any rate-Arthur Koestler’s intuitive insight into the psychological factors, the complex syndrome of motivations, presented in his novel Dorkmrss af Noon? nearly thirty years ago. Bacilek, the then Czechoslovak minister of justice, found it expedient to visit political prisoners in their cells to persuade them that by admitting their “guilt” they could render a last redeeming service to the party. The NKVDtrained torturers knew that they could not rely on their grisly handiwork alone. The victims had to be provided with a psychological justification to minimize the risk of later public repudiation;3 the use of force alone might not have assured a smooth performance at a public trial. Thus, devotion to the Communist Party, the appea1 to martyrdom for the cause, were used with great success as both rationale and rationalization. Recourse to “high principles” provided a public explanation for the defendants’ readiness to confess. Yet many problems raised by the political trials remain unresolved. Directed against “bourgeois nationalists.” the investigations were soon to change objectives and ctdminated in a violent assault against “Zionists” and “cosmopolitans.” What caused this v&e face? Reasons of state arising out of changing political conditions in the Middle East do not seem to supply a full explanation. More likely, anti-Semitism and anti-cosmopolitanism were seen as useful devices in attempting to isolate the communist East from dangerous contacts with the world outside. Also there always looms the residual irrationality of anti-Jewish feeling, rooted in history and in the personality make-up of some of the leading men involved.4 In the last and third part of the study, which deals chiefly with the aftereffects of the trials on the party and the system and with problems arising from the rehabilitation of the surviving victims, Karel Kaplan poses the question of Stalin’s intentions and his ability to retain effective control over the course of the trials and the machinations of the NKVD. The author ZArthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon (New York: The MacmiIIan Company, 1940). Gee also Loebl and Pokomy, op. cit., p. 20, for a similar view concerning the techniques of extracting confessions. ~532, for example, Stalin’s violent reaction to the discovery that his daughter had fallen in love vath a Jew. Svetlana AUiIuyeva. Twetlty Letters to a Friend (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). pp. 179-81.
96
admits that the evidence available does not warrant any definite conclusions. Stalin’s published messages to Gottwald concerning Slansky’s fate are highly ambiguous and open to conflicting interpretations. Was Stalin aware of the trap prepared for Slansky by the state security? Did Slansky fall prey to the purges of Zhdanov’s friends and followers which Beria and Malenkov set in motion after Zhdanov’s death in 194876 The impression seems to be gaining ground that in his declining years Stalin had come fully under the influence of Beria, his “evil genius,” and that he lost control over the machinery he had created.0 This would tend to support the view that Beria had engineered Slansky’s downfall, perhaps without Stalin’s approval or beyond his intention. The answer to these and many other questions will have to be. deferred until access is obtained to sources that are at present unavailable for examination.-Henry B. Brompton GEdward Tabonky, Communi.sm in Czechoskmakia, 1948-1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). p. 106: “While it is di5cult to prove that Slansky was Zbdanov’s prot&5, the two had been in frequent contact in Commform affairs. Since Slansky wns also the KSJ’s [CPCSI main representative at the Corninform, be was closer to the Soviet Cominform boss [Zhdanovl than any other high-ranking Czecboslovak Communist. One may also note that tbe sudden rehabilitation of Klement Gothvald coincided with Zbdanov’s eclipse in tbe Summer of 1948.” 6See Svetlana Alliluyeva, op. cit., pp. 136-38, and tbe recently published “Excerpts from a Draft Letter Written at Some Time During tbe First Months of 1945,” by George F. Kennan, Slavic Reoiew, Vol. 23, No. 3, September 1968 p. 481-84 supporting this view. Also, Boris Nicolaevsky, Power and the Soviet Elite (New ‘Ark: Fred&k A. Praeger, 1965). p. 257.
‘THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POLITICAL
TRIALS’
Selections from parts one and two of a study by Karel Kaplan of the CzechoSlovak show trials of the 1950s; they were printed in Nova Mysl, Nos. 6 and 7, June 5 and July 10, 1968. The translation is by Henry B. Brompton. . . . .
I am aware that it is not possible to present a completely unbiased picture of the political trials; however, L shall attempt to present as comprehensive a report as possible. I shall endeavor to place
the trials inside a large framework in order to make them easier to understand. For that reason I have decided to approach them by commenting on documents (taken primarily from the archives of the CC of the CPCS). I shall try to abstain from forcing my views on the reader . . . . . . The first [part] is an attempt to uncover the roots, the origins of the conditions that led to the main political trials; the second will consist of a description of the preparations and the conduct of the trials . . . 97