In October 1937, Slutsky’s deputy, Shpigelglias, arrived in Spain. It was he who, three months earlier, had organized the assassination in Switzerland of Ignatius Les, the head of the Ministry of the Interior’s intelligence station, who had refused to return to Moscow. Shpigelglias’ wife and daughter are still in the Soviet Union, effectively hostages, so he’s not too optimistic about his fate and, perhaps, is trying to get out of the situation. But it definitely doesn’t make him any less dangerous. There was nothing in Spain that had to be done by him, so his arrival only deepened my suspicions, especially since I later learned that he had met up with a certain Borodin in Madrid. The Borodin had been sent to Spain by Yerevan to lead the “Rangers” in their terrorist activities.
Spiegelgilias and Borodin must have considered the fact that I was protected by a special guard, and that an assassination attempt on my life would inevitably result in a gunfight. In that case, both sides would be dead or wounded, and no one would have an advantage. So I wondered, would Moscow order Borodin to kidnap my fourteen-year-old daughter and then intimidate me to force me to return to the Soviet Union? This dreadful thought haunted me so much that I was forced to speed to the outskirts where my wife and daughter lived, and to take them by car to the French territory. There I rented a small villa for them, not far from the Spanish border, and left with them the faithful bodyguard and chauffeur assigned to me by the Spanish secret service, while I returned to Barcelona.
I had been looking for an opportunity to postpone my break with Moscow, for I understood that by doing so I was at the same time prolonging the lives of my mother and mother-in-law.
I had been harboring the naive hope that something would happen to Moscow that would put an end once and for all to that endless nightmare of terror.
In the end, it was Moscow itself that decided my fate. On July 9, 1938, I received a telegram from Yezhov. This man was by then the second most important person after Stalin. He ordered me to go to Antwerp, Belgium, and to board the Soviet ship Svilly, which was anchored there, on July 14, to meet a “comrade whom you know very well”. It was also pointed out that I would have to travel there in the car of our embassy in Paris, accompanied by the Soviet consul-general in France, Biryukov: “In view of the importance of the task at hand, this person would be most suitable as a liaison officer”.
The message was long and ribald. Yerov and his entourage, all of whom had only recently been transferred from the central authorities to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, were too inexperienced compared to the former Interior Ministry chiefs who were now being suppressed. In order to allay my suspicions, these people dug their heels in and ended up revealing their intentions instead of trying to cover them up. There was no doubt that the “Svilly” would be my floating prison: my reply was “will be in Antwerp on the appointed day”.
On 12 July, my colleagues gathered in Barcelona, near the official church, to say goodbye to me. I think they all knew that I was heading for a trap and were convinced that I would fall into it.
After about two hours, I reached the French border. After bidding farewell to the Guardia Civil and the man in plain clothes who had been with me all along in the Spanish Secret Service, I was taken by a Spanish driver to a hotel in Perpignan, where my wife and daughter were waiting for me. We then took a night express train and arrived in Paris in the early hours of the next morning. I felt as if I had escaped from a sinking ship, and so unexpectedly that I had neither prepared for it nor had I had the luxury of expecting to be rescued.
I knew that the spy network of the Ministry of the Interior in France was extremely tight, and that within two days Yezhov’s agents would be able to trace me. This meant that I had to get out of France as soon as possible.
The only safe place of refuge for me was the United States. I hung up the phone with the American embassy and asked Ambassador William Bullitt to take the call. But it was on the eve of the French National Day, the day before the anniversary of the capture of the Bastille, and the man at the embassy answered me that the ambassador was not available. So I did as my wife suggested: I went to the Canadian Charge d’Affaires. There, I presented my diplomatic passport and applied for a visa to Canada on the pretext that I wanted to send my family to Quebec for the summer.
The Soviet Union had no diplomatic relations with Canada. I was therefore concerned that the Canadian Charge d’Affaires would deny my request. But the head of the Canadian Chargé d’Affaires, who had been the head of the Canadian Immigration Service, was sympathetic to us. He took the initiative to write a letter on his own behalf to the immigration officials in Quebec. He asked them to give me their help. Along with the letter, he gave it to me. In the meantime, we ran into another priest in the Chargé d’Affaires building. He was in some kind of contact with the transatlantic shipping company. He said that the Canadian ship “Moncrier” was sailing from Cherbourg today, and that there were a few seats available. I rushed to the ticket office and my wife went straight to the hotel to pick up our daughter. When the three of us arrived at the train station, the train was just about to leave. A few hours later, we were well on our way to the ship. After another hour or so, we finally left Europe.
My daughter was relaxed and happy to make the trip. She had no idea what was going on. Neither my wife nor I knew how to explain to her that she would never see her partner, her two grandmothers or her country again.
Since 1926, my work has forced me to spend most of my time abroad, and my daughter’s love for her country and its people has never been overshadowed by it. Because of her rheumatoid arthritis, she had little opportunity to observe real life, so she had no idea of the deep suffering of her fellow countrymen, let alone the cruelty of the Stalinist regime. My wife and I never wanted to break her various beautiful illusions. From an early age, our daughter especially hated any brutality and, at the same time, deeply sympathized with those who were suffering. We knew that. Due to rheumatism, her life was likely to be very short, so we tried not to let her know the truth, which of course meant Stalin’s tyranny, but also the tragic fate of the Russian people.
It was difficult to explain to her what had happened to our family. But she understood. She heard our conversation and cried very sadly. The ideal world in her mind had turned out to be an illusion, the beautiful fantasies of the past. All those beautiful fantasies of the past had turned to naught. She was proud that her parents had fought to the death in the Civil War, but now she was suffering for us. Overnight, she grew up.
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