Yerov sent Yevgeny Ivanova back to her cell and ordered her husband to be brought up. He told Ivanov that Ivanova had just confessed that during their exile in Siberia the couple had discussed with other exiles how to carry out Trotsky’s secret instructions about killing Stalin. As evidence, Yezhov showed Pavel Ivanov the confession signed by his wife. At the same time, he explained that the interrogators had not yet had time to write down her confession in detail.
Seeing his wife’s signature, Pavel Ivanov pointed at Yezhov’s nose and shouted. “What have you done to her?” This night, for the first time, he lost his self-control. But he still refused to falsely accuse himself and his comrades. Even though Yerov was a secretary of the Central Committee, Ivanov scoffed at him. Yerov began to insult him and lectured that Bolsheviks should make certain sacrifices for the party. At this point, Ivanov shot up and echoed: “I would like to know what sacrifices you have made for the party, and somehow I have never heard of you either in your underground work during the Tsarist period, or in the days of the October Revolution, or even during the civil war. Tell us all, where did you burrow out from?”
In front of the interrogators, Yezhov had to swallow the “spit” that had been spat into his mouth. Soon, the news about Ivanov’s angry rebuke to Yezhov spread among the NKVD staff.
The next day, Yezhov re-interrogated Ivanov and used every means to intimidate the latter. Convinced that other threats were no longer effective against Ivanov, Yezhov ordered the interrogators to arrest Ivanov’s two sons in person.
“My youngest son is only fifteen years old!” Ivanov said.
A few days later, Yerov came back to torment Ivanov. This time, he appeared more conciliatory and assured Ivanov, in the name of Stalin, that if the latter submitted to the will of the party, the Central Committee “would take into account his past contributions to the revolution. Then Yerev urged the interrogated man to think seriously about the future of his children, to consider what would happen if they were also arrested.
“So, they have not been arrested yet,” Ivanov asked.
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough,” Yerev said. “Probably, they haven’t had time to arrest them yet.”
In fact, Yezhov knew in his heart that both of Ivanov’s sons were still free. The last arrest warrant he issued was pure blackmail, designed to destroy Ivanov’s resistance. But he continued to torture the nerves of his interrogator, pretending to instruct the interrogator to call the internal prison and ask whether Ivanov’s two sons had been admitted. The prison authorities replied that both of Ivanov’s sons were still “off the books”. At this point, Yezhov asked Ivanov for the phone number of his mother-in-law’s house, then picked up the phone and dialed there.
It was Ivanov’s mother-in-law who answered the phone.
“This is the NKVD,” Yerov explained to her, “Pavel Ivanov wants to know how his children are doing now.”
The night was silent. Ivanov, sitting in front of the telephone, heard the old woman’s answer clearly. She said that the eldest grandson was not in Moscow, and that the youngest was in good health and was sleeping soundly at the moment. Yerev repeated her words and handed the microphone to Ivanov again. But Ivanov refused, so pained that he could hardly breathe, not wanting his relatives to understand the situation he was in right now.
“Is there something you want me to pass on?” Yezhov asked.
“Please tell her to take care of the child,” Ivanov said with difficulty, “and ask her to change my winter coat and give it to the child.”
While Yerov repeated these words into the microphone, Pavel Ivanov collapsed on the tabletop, clasping his hands over his face in pain and sobbing uncontrollably.
This human tragedy was too much for even the investigators present to witness. They sat with a heavy heart and did not even dare to look at each other. To know. Howling in front of them was an old Bolshevik. This old party member, who had withstood the hard labor and severe torture of the Tsar, was unable to hold back his tears in the Soviet prison.
An interrogator who witnessed this tragic situation at the time later said to me.
“I have never seen such a nasty person as Yezhov in my life. How could he be so happy about it?”
As it turned out, Yezhov was the victor. Pavel Ivanov’s defenses crumbled. Ivanov had been worried about the fate of his son. At this point, he was ready to do anything in order not to let disaster befall his young son, who was sleeping at home, and decided to do whatever it took to save his child, who was enveloped in danger.
In accordance with Yerev’s instructions, the interrogators hurriedly prepared a short “interrogation transcript”, in which they wrote that in 1932 he, Ivanov, had learned from I. N. Smirnov that Trotsky had given a secret order to assassinate the party leader. In accordance with this order, he, Ivanov, selected X from among the exiled Trotskyists as the assassin who would go to Moscow to assassinate Stalin. Ivanov read the “confession”, signed it, and then told Yerev that, as far as he could remember, there was no such person as X among those exiled with him. In response, Yerev was silent.
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