The Modern Inquisition. Hugo Dewar 1953
One of the shortest wars in military history was that waged between Bulgaria and the Soviet Union in 1944. The words ‘war’ and ‘waged’ are really inaccurate, for although the USSR declared a state of war with Bulgaria on 3 September, not a shot was fired by either side. On 8 September Bulgaria declared war against Germany and on the 9th the Fatherland Front seized power and proclaimed its readiness to sign an armistice with the Soviet Union, whose troops had entered Bulgaria without resistance.
However, this declaration of a state of war gave the Soviet Union the formal pretext for its troops to occupy Bulgaria. The presence of this military force had a heartening effect upon the Bulgarian Communists. The Bulgarian people were aware of the close ties between the Soviet government and the Communist Party, and they rightly assumed that the latter would enjoy the confidence of the Russian occupying authorities. In addition to this, Bulgaria’s past struggle against Turkish rule had inclined the people to look upon Russia as their historic liberator, since Tsarist Russia had aided them in this bid for freedom from an alien domination. The psychological effect of all this was of great value to the Communists. Behind the façade of the Fatherland Front — a union of Agrarians, Socialists, Communists and the Zveno Party — the Communists manoeuvred to occupy the key governmental positions and squeeze out their temporary allies from all but purely decorative posts.
Bulgaria became a Russian ‘sphere of influence’ as a result of the war. But there were forces within the country that strove for true national independence and did not want to see her colonised. Even within the Communist ranks there were men infected with the germ of ‘nationalism’, or — as their party enemies would later phrase it — ‘bourgeois nationalism’. The most immediate danger to Russia’s postwar aims, however, was the left wing of the Agrarian Party, led by Nicolas D Petkov. The Agrarian Party was an organisation of considerable political weight, since it enjoyed the support of the overwhelming majority of the peasantry, in a land whose economy is 80 per cent agricultural. The Communist Party, whose strength rested partly on the industrial proletariat and partly on Russian military might, could not hope in a short time and by normal propaganda methods to break the influence of the Agrarians, particularly since no large landed estates existed in Bulgaria and the bulk of the peasants were quite small property owners. However, as both pre- and postwar experience of Russian policy has shown, the Russian government does not feel its position sufficiently secure to permit the existence of opposition parties, organisations, or even individuals. The first task to be tackled by the Stalinists — executing the Kremlin’s orders to eliminate all ‘hostile elements’ — was the destruction of the Agrarian Party. The leaders of the Agrarian Party, allies and colleagues of the Communists in the Fatherland Front Government and the Fatherland Front Committees throughout the country, were to be subjected to a systematic, steadily mounting offensive, which would end in their being labelled ‘enemies of the people’ and placed in the dock as criminals. The Moscow propaganda trial, somewhat adapted to the foreign market, was to be successfully exported to the territory of Europe.
With the trial in August 1947 of Nicolas Petkov, most outstanding leader of the one serious opposition to the Stalinists in the conglomeration of factions comprising the Agrarian Party, the only political force capable of putting up any kind of resistance to Russian domination ceased to exist.
The history of Bulgarian politics is a long and bloody record of incredibly ferocious assassinations, of torture of political opponents, of violence and kidnappings. Nicolas Petkov’s father and brother had both fallen to the bullets of assassins in the pay of reactionary forces. Petkov’s brother, Petco, had been a close collaborator of the Agrarian leader Stamboliisky, who was tortured, mutilated, made to dig his own grave and then murdered by members of the Macedonian terrorist organisation IMRO in 1923. Shortly after this atrocity, Petco Petkov himself was shot down and killed in broad daylight on a Sofia street. Large numbers of Agrarian Party members were massacred throughout Bulgaria in this 1923 coup d'état engineered by the Tsankovists. The Bulgarian Communists were subsequently called to account by the Communist International (that is, by the Russian leaders) for having followed a ‘sectarian’ policy and not having made common cause with the Agrarians against the bourgeoisie, the army and the monarchy, who had thus been able to triumph over a divided opposition. Thereafter the Stalinists sought to put into effect the policy of the ‘united front’ with the Agrarians.
It is interesting to note that in the political battles prior to 1923 Nicolas Petkov’s brother had been accused by his opponents of conspiracy with a foreign state (Yugoslavia) for the purpose of provoking internal dissension. ‘In April a “conspiracy” was discovered and forty peasants tortured to make “confessions”; but an unprejudiced Public Prosecutor declared this evidence worthless.’ (H Swire, Bulgarian Conspiracy (Robert Hale, 1939), p 178) As we shall see, there is a close resemblance between this charge against Petco and the one made by the Stalinists against Nicolas in 1947; but in 1947 there was no unprejudiced Public Prosecutor.
Petkov was a member of the extreme left wing of the Agrarian Party, known as the ‘Pladne’ group. It was deputies of this group who had been expelled, together with the Communists, from the parliament of 1938. This incident is a sufficient indication of the political views of these Agrarians. Petkov himself would be regarded by many people in this country as a ‘fellow-traveller’. He was so regarded by many Bulgarians, even within the Agrarian Party. At his trial both he and his defence counsel stressed the fact that he had always favoured a policy of collaboration with the Communist Party:
He was a man who, from that moment [formation of the Agrarian left wing — author] up to 9 September, has been in contact with the Communist Party. He is the man who, on 9 September, did not spare even his Agrarian comrades of the Mouraviev Cabinet, for he considered that they had followed a false path and did not hesitate to declare against them. (Le Procès Nicolas D Petkov (Sofia, 1947), p 349, officially published report of the trial)
Petkov asks a hostile witness why, if his — Petkov’s — ‘hypocritical, lying activity’ was so well known to everyone, was the Communist Party so anxious to secure his collaboration, begging him many times to join the National Committee of the Fatherland Front? In the first Fatherland Front government he occupied the post of Vice-President, and did not quit this post until August 1945, and only resigned then because his party demanded it. Although it is true that the political influence of his organisation was necessarily a weighty factor in his selection as one of the delegates who went to Moscow to sign the armistice, his immediate post-liberation role also followed logically from the political line that he had long pursued. Before Petkov grasped the full meaning of Communist policy vis-à-vis Bulgaria and broke with them as a consequence, he had never been attacked by them as a ‘reactionary’. Not all their remarkable skill in distorting the past to suit each new shift in their tactics can conceal the fact that Petkov and his group were acceptable allies for a considerable time. But in destroying the opposition both physically and morally it was necessary for the Stalinists to represent it as having always been ‘Fascist’. And one reason for this branding of their opponents as ‘Fascist dictators’ is the need to divert attention from their own totalitarian methods and their own totalitarian aims.
In this connection the Stalinists’ attitude towards General Stanchev is very revealing. It is a truly remarkable demonstration of the mental gymnastics they are able to perform at the crack of the ringmaster’s whip.
Extracts from General Stanchev’s deposition were read out at Petkov’s trial. Stanchev himself was stated to be in a prison hospital, too ill to leave his bed. He had been arrested in July 1946, but did not come up for trial until October 1947, after Petkov had been hanged. In his concluding speech at Stanchev’s trial the Public Prosecutor said:
You have heard that General Stanchev pleaded guilty, but this he did in very general terms. He did not confess nor did he bring forward any incriminating evidence. He, whom I regard as the centre of the conspiracy, could, if he wanted, implicate many people who are now at liberty, but he has not done so. He only says that he is guilty, but refuses to give us the names of other guilty persons. In this way he has saved a good many criminals. (Fatherland Front, 10 October 1947)
General Stanchev was evidently a tough nut to crack. He refused to play according to the rules laid down by his enemies — so he got a life sentence. To sentence him to death would have been a little too much, in view of his past record, about which the accusers observed a natural reticence. For it was of Stanchev that the Communist daily Zarya had this to say on 10 October 1944:
He was well known until recently as Major Stanchev. A distinguished officer and a really great man, his name became popular with the people during the 1935 trial of officers in the group attached to General Damyan Velchev. After that Stanchev spent five years in prison... Patient, honest, courageous, Stanchev was one of the most active organisers of the Fatherland Front during the heaviest days of the Fascist persecution. The victory of the Fatherland Front was largely due to him.
But there was more than this. In 1936, after Stanchev had been sentenced to death by the King Boris government, a group of British Members of Parliament had telegraphed an appeal for clemency. The appeal was successful. Among these MPs was DN Pritt, a man who has achieved something of a reputation by his readiness to champion the cause of the oppressed, with a bias in favour of those enjoying Stalinist endorsement. Having all this in mind, it would have been perhaps embarrassing for the Bulgarian Stalinists to do what the Boris government had flinched from doing in defiance of world public opinion. Had they sentenced Stanchev to death they might perhaps have received an appeal for clemency, again signed by the ever-vigilant Pritt. It is also more than probable that they had not entirely given up hope of extracting a ‘full confession’. So they contented themselves with a life sentence. But they thus condemned a man whom they had long held up to the people as a shining example of progressive thought and action. Stanchev stood in the way of Russian aims in Bulgaria and the Communists therefore did not hesitate an instant to contradict all that they had said of him in the past, to blacken his character and destroy him.
Nicolas Petkov, like many another, learned from personal experience that which history had been unable to teach him. As the supreme court stated in its findings, the opposition in Bulgaria was created as a result of ‘certain measures of the government, such as the People’s Courts and the arrests relative to them, the internment of families of those condemned by the People’s Courts, the institution of camps of re-education through work...’ (Le Procès Nicolas D Petkov (Sofia, 1947), p 477 — author’s emphasis). Petkov and his supporters found the trend of events alarming. The policy of suppressing ‘hostile elements’, a policy to which they themselves had necessarily been party, was now being used by the Stalinists to undermine their own positions. They not unnaturally fought back. The Communist prosecutor Petrinski interprets this fight as follows:
Nicolas Petkov and his acolytes employed all legal means — propaganda by the press, by speeches and later through the tribune of parliament — not in order to aid the popular power in its efforts... but to undermine, to sabotage, to provoke discontent, to incite the people, and to conspire against the power of the Fatherland Front. (Ibid, p 285)
Petrinski further complains of the following open attack on his party in the Petkov press:
Following 9 September 1944, the Central Committee of the Communist Party, having succeeded in getting hold of all the key positions in the Cabinet, has established a dictatorship in the country. That dictatorial regime in no way differs from the regime known to the people from the years of Fascist dictatorship. (Ibid, pp 300-01)
Petrinski quotes these words and finds them ‘monstrous’. But monstrous or not, they show how Petkov and his followers viewed the course of events in Bulgaria. And it cannot be disputed that a central principle of Communist theory is the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat; a theory originally meant to apply to circumstances where the proletariat constituted the majority of the population, but applied to agrarian countries must inevitably result in the dictatorship of a police machine over the majority of the population. It was against this development that Petkov and his followers conducted their open, unconcealed political fight.
The reaction of the opposition to the general trend towards dictatorship is further indicated by Prosecutor Petrinski’s statement that the Petkov Agrarians demanded the following conditions for an agreement with the Communists: that the post of first President of the Cabinet must be given to them, and that the Ministry of the Interior — the truly key post — must be confided either to a political party other than the Communist, or to an independent.
It is thus clear that Petkov finally realised that his former Communist allies were aiming at concentrating all power in their hands and that the idea of loyally collaborating in a coalition was completely alien to them. Subsequent events in Bulgaria have fully confirmed the Communists’ totalitarian aims. It is also clear that Petkov and his co-thinkers reacted politically, that is, they conducted an open struggle to win the support of the people for their policy. The Communists could not allow such a state of affairs to long endure. Political opposition is for them always equivalent to criminal activity. It is of no importance if there is no objective evidence of criminal acts; subjectively their opponents are guilty of conspiracy, since they desire a change of regime, and the Communists are going to make sure that no normal constitutional means are left open to them for effecting such a change. The only methods left open to them are illegal, conspiratorial. Therefore, holding oppositional views, they must resort to measures interpreted by the Communists as conspiracy. The fact that they may not have yet done so does not matter. Hence the large amount of time taken up during the trial explaining that Petkov was a political opponent. The opposition ‘boycotted the 1946 elections on the pretext that they were not freely conducted'; Petkov ‘opposed everything new, progressive and democratic'; he was against the right to recall deputies; he was not a republican; he was opposed to the plans for ‘cooperative’ agriculture; he was against the Two-Year Plan of industrialisation. All these ‘charges’ that were made against him at his trial — whether true or not — are purely political. In no really democratic country would a man lay himself open to a charge of treason in holding the view that, for example, nationalisation of industries or collectivisation of agriculture was unsuitable for that country. The very fact that so much time is taken up by the prosecution in the Petkov trial to proving what was utterly irrelevant to the charges for which they were ostensibly being tried gives the unavoidable impression that the indictment against the accused is nothing more than a pretext and does not really cover their real crime. It aroused the very strong suspicion that their real crime was that they were political opponents of the Stalinists.
This suspicion is further strengthened when we note Petrinski admitting that: ‘It is true that at first everything went under the form of an expression of opinion, but that contained in itself a suggestion of action.’ (Ibid, p 291) It could hardly be more plainly put — political opposition implies action, otherwise it has no meaning; but in the eyes of the Stalinists ‘action’ means illegal conspiracy to overthrow the regime.
Our suspicion becomes certainty, however, when we hear the Communist leader Dimitrov threatening the Socialists:
From this rostrum, as you remember, I warned your allies from Nicolas Petkov’s group a number of times. They did not listen. They ran their heads against a wall. Their leader is under the ground. You must think over whether you want to share the fate of your allies — foreign agents and Bulgaria’s enemies. If you have not been wise in the past and do not try to gain wisdom, you will receive a lesson from the nation that you will remember until you meet St Peter. (Bulgarian National Assembly, 13 January 1948)
This warning was directed at the Socialist Deputies, led by Lulchev. The threat was duly carried out, Lulchev ‘tried’ and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, equivalent at his advanced age to a death sentence. Dimitrov is here warning the last remnants of the opposition that they must cease political activity. He is not talking about conspiracy, not accusing them of organising conspiracies, of engaging in espionage and so forth: he is simply saying that if they persist in conducting a political campaign against his party, in however modest a manner, then they will be ‘unmasked’ as ‘conspirators’ and share the same fate as Petkov. And to leave no room for any doubt at all, he added:
If they [Britain and the USA — author] had not intervened from abroad, and if some had not ultimately attempted to dictate to our sovereign court, Petkov’s head could have been saved. The death sentences could have been commuted to other punishment. But when it came to the question of blackmailing the Bulgarian nation and infringing on the right of our sovereign people’s court, the death sentence had to be executed. And it was executed.
No more cynical an admission could be made of the fact that Petkov’s execution was an act not of justice but of political vengeance. Coming from Dimitrov it is all the more revolting: for Dimitrov knew when he spoke that he owed his own life to foreign intervention at the time of the Reichstag Fire Trial. The purpose of the Petkov trial becomes obvious to any person prepared to look at the facts.
But Petkov was not hanged solely, or even primarily, because clemency would have looked like yielding to pressure from the West. Had he pleaded guilty, the Stalinists might possibly have commuted his sentence in spite of that pressure — for in those circumstances they would not have had to fear loss of face. Petkov’s unforgivable sin was his refusal to plead guilty.
The other four defendants at the trial did, however, ‘confess’, and their lives were spared. It was their testimony that constituted the ‘conspiracy’ evidence against Petkov. In his book Dimitrov Wastes no Bullets (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948), Michael Padev has subjected these confessions to a close analysis and shown them to be worthless; they in no way prove that Petkov was even a member, let alone the inspirer, of any conspiracy aiming at a coup d'état. Without necessarily sharing any of Padev’s political views or conclusions, we can recommend this book to those interested in an exposure of the inconsistencies and illogicalities in which the confessions abound. It should be constantly borne in mind by the reader, however, that the public trial is the end-product of many rehearsals that have taken place behind the scenes during the preliminary investigation. Even if the final product should prove to have no observable flaws at all, that would not justify acceptance of them. And those naive, or interested, observers who report that these trials appear to conform to due legal procedure miss the essential point — which is that the real trial takes place beforehand, in the shadows. While, therefore, we shall from time to time point out the more salient absurdities and impossibilities contained in the confessions, our main interest will be concentrated on their political purpose and on such glimpses as they afford into the technique of the preliminary investigation.
The political nature and purpose of the Petkov trial has already been made clear. It remains to consider the question of the technique employed.
Of the four defendants who pleaded guilty, two, Colonel Marko Ivanov and Colonel Boris Gergov, had been in prison for a year before the trial opened. They had appeared as self-inculpatory witnesses in three previous trials: the ‘Neutral Officer’ trial in February 1947; the trial of General Ivan Popov in May 1947; and the Koev trial in June 1947. They were also to appear as witnesses in a trial subsequent to their own, that of General Stanchev and the so-called Military League, in October 1947. Ivanov and Gergov had been at the disposal of the preliminary examiners for six months before they were called as witnesses in the first trial. After giving evidence they were escorted back to their cells. If we recall the revelations of Koev regarding his treatment at the hands of his examiners we shall be able to appreciate the attitude of these two men. And if we further remember that Koev, sentenced to fifteen years in June 1947, was brought out of prison to ‘confess’ yet once more and implicate his friend and colleague Petkov, we come to the inescapable conclusion that all these ‘witnesses’, testifying in their confessions against themselves and each other, spoke under duress. Koev, who had confessed at his first interrogation, then retracted this confession after his release, then been rearrested and again confessed, had been given a sentence that was — in view of the ‘treachery’ of his revelations regarding the interrogation technique — comparatively mild: fifteen years. His life was spared, but he was required to testify against his closest friend. The authorities made a bargain with him, as they did with the others. They received ‘mercy’ in return for ‘repentance’. It is, however, unlikely that they will ever be heard of again.
Addressing Athanassov, another of the accused at the Petkov trial who confessed, the president said — before he made his deposition in court: ‘Bear in mind that even he who has committed the gravest crime, if he makes a sincere confession, and the court understands that the accused repents, it can give proof of indulgence towards him.’ (Ibid, p 46) It is not possible to mistake his meaning. Why, in spite of its revealing character, did the president feel it incumbent on him to make such a remark? There can be only one answer to that: to make sure that the accused kept to the bargain made beforehand. He was giving them both a warning and a promise. Even with Petkov, who had stood firm and asserted his innocence, he made a last effort. He told him: ‘There is a wise Latin inscription to be seen in the Palace of Justice, more than 2000 years old, which says that a sincere confession of guilt purifies the soul and softens the fate of the accused.’ (Ibid, p 121 — author’s emphasis)
But Petkov refused to plead guilty. And even this is taken as a sure proof — proof, mark you — of his guilt. For Prosecutor Petrinski says: ‘He does not admit his guilt and that is no accident. Confession is an act of bravery.’ (Ibid, p 310) It is a matter of ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. Yet how much at a loss for a convincing argument must this man have been to fall back on such ‘reasoning'; and how lacking in any decency — not to speak of logical sense — to follow this up with these despicable words: ‘The first proof is that Petkov is trembling, not with his hands alone but with his whole body... Innocent men do not tremble.’ The time may yet come when Prosecutor Petrinski will learn that a man may tremble and still be innocent (innocent of the charge laid against him, for there are crimes of which Petrinski can never cleanse his soul). But it is to be doubted that Petrinski, should he ever find himself in the dock facing his erstwhile comrades, will find the courage ‘never to submit or yield’. Perhaps he too will then tremble, even although he does not suffer from Petkov’s nervous complaint — of which we know Petrinski was aware.
All this throws a sharp light on the mechanics of the pre-trial process. No matter what crime an accused may have committed, there is always one still greater — the crime of not confessing. By this very fact of refusing to be the mouthpiece of his inquisitors he shows himself an enemy, according to the perverted logic of the Stalinists. ‘If you are really in support of the regime, really for the Soviet power, really a “patriot” — you would be prepared to make this sacrifice, to tell all you know.’ But if there is nothing to tell? No, there must be something: for those in power know well enough that they are not loved by the people. Where tyranny rules there will occasionally be spontaneous reaction against it: individuals here and there will try to strike back. And the authorities cannot believe that such actions can ever be those of isolated persons, cannot believe that they are not directed from a centre, part of a concerted plot. Such actions express the mood of the people, and to be a political opponent of the regime means to help generate, maintain and deepen that mood. More than that, it means to offer a rallying point, an organisational centre, and the possibility of making that opposition politically effective. Therefore these political opponents are morally responsible for any terrorist actions committed by individuals driven to desperation by oppressive government measures. And it does not even matter if no such actions have in fact been committed, because the authorities know that the people are opposed to them, know that they are thinking ‘dangerous thoughts’. So moral responsibility must at all costs be connected arbitrarily with some act of terrorism or sabotage, real or pretended, which from the propaganda viewpoint can be presented more effectively than the case for ‘moral responsibility’. For this, confessions, and compliant witnesses, are absolutely essential, otherwise there would be no ‘evidence’. Petkov died, therefore, not because he was guilty, but because he would not confess to being guilty.
A further insight into the technique employed to extort these confessions is seen from the case of the witness N Athanassov. On page 245 of the trial record it is stated that this man had been arrested after giving evidence, because the authorities considered his testimony ‘false and inexact'; for this, it was further stated, he would be tried. Athanassov’s ‘false and inexact’ testimony was, as the record shows, simply testimony that was altogether too favourable to the accused. Those of the witnesses who are not already sentenced, or who are not under arrest awaiting sentence, are thus forcibly reminded that but for the grace of the authorities they would also be standing trial. Justice here is not blind, nor does she bear aloft impartial scales: she carries only in one hand a hammer, and in the other the scythe of death.
Those responsible for the Petkov trial were not entirely satisfied with their handiwork, and therefore, eager to leave no infamy undone, they either forced or forged a Petkov ‘confession’ after sentence had been pronounced and the prisoner removed from the public gaze. This ‘confession’ they produced in facsimile in their published report of the trial; in facsimile, because they knew it would be said it had been forged. But look! — they cry triumphantly — it is in his own hand! Their sensibilities are too blunted to appreciate how indescribably despicable this kind of thing is, even if Petkov wrote it himself, even if they did not torture him before they choked him to death. And when they produced this ‘confession’ the man was already in his grave; they made a dead man speak — with the voice of his murderers.
In many respects the Petkov trial differed from the Moscow Trials — or rather, it resembled them only as the product of an apprentice resembles the model of the master. The principal accused did not confess or plead guilty; his counsel really tried to demolish, and succeeded in demolishing, the case for the prosecution; and there were witnesses speaking in favour of the accused in spite of the grave danger they courted in so doing. As time went by and the domination of the Stalinists became more secure, more absolute, the technique improved, as we shall see. The work of the apprentice approached more closely to that of the experienced craftsman. But our previous brief notice of ‘confessions’ extorted by torture in prewar Bulgaria reminds us that however much technique may improve, and however much more polished the finished article may appear, the essential background of inquisitorial terror remains unchanged, or changed only in its having widened its scope, become more all-pervading. Glancing at Bulgarian political life in the past, we find the following words of a journalist, writing of the difficulties encountered many years ago in gathering news in Bulgaria, to remind us that plus ça change, plus ça reste le même:
Then the seeker after truth should desist or better still leave Bulgaria, or the Swoboda (the government gazette) will denounce him as a Russian spy and stout-limbed sapages, political heelers who carry long sticks and use them ruthlessly, will dog his footsteps and then come forward to swear that he endeavoured by means of the traditional rouble notes to shake their allegiance to the throne. And then the Nadrodny Prava will publish his photograph under the caption ‘another traitor unmasked’ and demand his expulsion from the sacred soil. (Stephan Bonsal, Heyday in a Vanished World (Allen and Unwin, 1938), p 192)
If in this respect the situation has changed in Bulgaria, it would be a bold — and blind — man who would say it has changed for the better.
The Petkov case may be studied to advantage by those who still imagine that it is possible to work with the Communists without running one’s head into the noose. It ought to make it clear to them that breaches of faith on the part of the Stalinists are not occasional lapses from the path of virtue, dictated by expediency, lamentable and morally indefensible but capable of a certain justification by appeal to precedent in the game of power politics. In the first place they do not admit that their entire policy is dictated by considerations of power politics, brazenly denying what is crystal clear: that their policy is governed solely by the imperialist or military-strategic interests of the rulers of Russia. In the second place, the deception, hypocrisy and blatant lying by means of which they seek to forward this policy is deliberate, systematic and conscious. The means employed have no reference to anybody of social principles, they result from a complete lack of any principles whatever — unless expediency be called a principle. It is therefore useless to seek in a study of Marxism any clue to the broad strategic aims pursued, aims that are both concealed and revealed in the twists and turns of the tactical line at any given moment. The Petkov case may help to show the grave mistake made by those who think that the Stalinists have any other aim than the advancement of Russia’s national interests — that is, the interests of the Russian ruling clique, and not, of course, of the Russian people.