However, an incident happened soon after. It was a small but representative event, which fully proved the correctness of the comrades’ intuition. In the winter of 1923, the Prosecutor General of the Republic, Nikolai Krelenko, summoned several members of his staff, including Vyshinsky and myself, and informed him that the Politburo had assigned him to clean up and analyze the materials of a secret investigation into the activities of Soviet plenipotentiaries in foreign countries. In view of the sheer volume of material, Krelenko, with the consent of the Politburo, absorbed us into this work. We had to study the materials together with him and report our views to the Central Committee. The work could only be done at night at his Home, because he had promised the Central Committee that the documents would not be leaked.
Krylenko’s home was a luxurious detached house, which before the revolution belonged to the Duke of Gagarin. That day, we never left the small building. Krelenko assigned us thirty or forty copies of the documents to be analyzed, explaining at the same Time that Avanesov, the People’s Commissar for State Supervision, who was engaged in this investigation, had discovered that among the Soviet representatives in foreign countries there was a shameful practice of embezzlement and secret squandering of large sums of money; moreover, certain staff members were suspected of collaborating with foreign spy agencies.
Krelenko asked us to write our conclusions on a large sheet of paper, and in this order: on the left, under the names of the defendants, we should briefly write the substance of the charges, indicating whether there is enough evidence to bring them to court. On the right side, it is indicated where the case should be transferred: to the criminal court or to the Central Supervisory Commission, or to the disciplinary procedure, with an indication of what punishment should be imposed.
The entire document is much more boring than expected. They contain essentially unsubstantiated accusations, made by bureaucrats who are not on good terms with each other, at the slander of their wives. There are only a few documents that prove embezzlement, moral turpitude and other things that undermine the prestige of the country. As for treason, we didn’t find it at all.
Throughout the evening, Krylenko was with us. From time to time he came up to each of us and checked how the work was progressing. When he came up behind Vyshinsky, he became interested in the affairs of a Soviet diplomat. That man was accused of living an extremely extravagant lifestyle, having an affair with the wife of one of his subordinates, and a number of other faults. Vyshinsky recommended that the diplomat be expelled from the party, committed to court and sentenced to three years in prison.
“How can this be – three years?” Khorenko asked in an unsatisfied tone.
“You should write that he has brought the Soviet state into disrepute in the eyes of the West, and for that he should be shot?”
Vyshinsky blushed with embarrassment.
“At first I wanted to suggest shooting, too,” he murmured in a flattering tone, “but ……”
He stammered, straining to find an appropriate explanation, but could not. This alarmed him, and he hastened to stammer and admit his mistake. Krelenko stared at him with a sneer, as if he felt a certain satisfaction at Vyshinsky’s haste.
“But that’s not even close to a crime!” He declared unexpectedly, and, pointing to Vyshinsky’s notes on the expulsion of the diplomat from the party and his committal to the court, ordered categorically.
“Please write: case closed!”
I didn’t look at Wisinski, not wanting to embarrass him further. But Vyshinsky suddenly gave a curt laugh.
“Nikolai Vassilyevich, you’re a real trickster! You confused me. …… When you proposed to shoot him, I was completely at a loss. I thought, how ill-considered I was, to propose only three years! But now …… ha-ha-ha ……”
Wisinski’s laughter sounded so hypocritical and disgusting.
I’ve already said that many people think Wisinski is a party drill sergeant, but I never expected him to be so unprincipled and lacking in morals: proving a person innocent or shooting that person. He was actually prepared to do it, as long as he could pander and please his superiors.
Vyshinsky’s own position was precarious. When the old Bolsheviks had prestige in the country, the purge was like a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. This is why the wave of destruction of opposition members that followed the crushing of the opposition was to Vyshinsky’s advantage.
Stalin needed a group of people in all the Soviet organizations to come out and accuse the old Bolsheviks of opposing the Stalinist line, and to help him destroy these old Praetorians. When the center listened to these false accusations and removed the old Bolsheviks from their key positions, the false accusers were rewarded by going to occupy these vacant positions.
In this situation, it is not surprising that Vyshinsky was able to become the “watchful eye” of the party and was instructed to monitor the Supreme Court, which was carrying out the Stalinist line. Now he no longer had to tremble in front of any party purge, because now it was those who were suspected of showing sympathy for the persecuted comrades of Lenin who were expelled from the party. Vyshinsky would have no such suspicions. He was appointed procurator general and began to actively place “reliable party members” in the judiciary and the prosecution. Naturally, there was no place for a man like Nikolai Krylenko, the founder of Soviet law, or even of the entire Soviet judicial system. He was declared politically unreliable, although he did not belong to any opposition. But Vyshinsky, who for many years had been a goody-goody in front of Krylenko, was given the “honorable” task of speaking at a congress of judicial workers and denouncing Krylenko’s “anti-Leninist and bourgeois” policy in the judicial sphere.
Vyshinsky, in his prominent position as Prosecutor General, watched with satisfaction as one by one the old Bolsheviks were expelled from the Supreme Court. It was in early 1938 that Krylenko disappeared. Also missing was his ex-wife, Elenche Rozmirovich, who had been secretary of the Foreign Bureau of the Party Central Committee and Lenin’s personal secretary before the revolution.
In July 1936, I came face to face with Galkin in the corridor of the Interior Ministry building. He was being escorted by his jailers. Apparently, Galkin was so overwhelmed by what had happened that he did not recognize me, although we looked at each other for a moment.
I immediately went into Berman’s office and asked him to give Galkin as much help as possible. Berman told me that Galkin had been arrested on the basis of an informer’s letter received by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, accusing him of denouncing the dissolution of the Old Bolshevik Association by the Party Central Committee. It was Vyshinsky who wrote the informant’s letter.
In all three Moscow trials, Vyshinsky was appointed state prosecutor, and in this case Stalin once again demonstrated the meaning of his concept of “using the needy where the need is”. There is probably no other person in the whole country who can be so dedicated to the old Bolsheviks as Vyshinsky.
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