The rules of the game
Sir: Mr Weidberg (Letters, 11 April) is surely correct in saying that it is simply torture that elicits confessions by hardened Bolsheviks in Russian trials. The following passage from Pushkin (The Captain's Daughter) explains the (to us mystifying) Russian ritual of confc,14„, in an authoritative way : `Torture in the old daz;,161-ined so integral a part of judici„al PrOtedure that the humane edict for long remained a dead letter. if was thought that the criminal's own confes- sion was necessary in order to find him guilty —an idea not only without foundation but even- wholly contrary to good sense . . Even now I sometimes hear old judges regretting the aboli- tion of the barbarous custom. But in ttose days no one, judge or accused, doubted the necessity of torture.'
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