Soviet "Justice"
Russian Purge, and the Extraction of Confession. By F. Beck and W. Godin. (Hurst and Blackett. r es. 6d.) Russian Purge is a composite work by a Soviet historian and a German scientist, who wire victims of the same purge in the late 'thirties. The authors conceal their identity for the sake of former colleagues, but they give a clear-cut account of life in Soviet prisons, types of prisoners and methods of interrogation. They propound no fewer than seventeen theories to account for the fact of the purges, but in the main they are content to leave their readers to choose between the-different theories, and to form their conclusions about the prisoners' confessions. Two principal points, emerge. In the first place the concept of justice, as we understand it, is non-existent in the Soviet Union. This, more than any other single factor, distinguishes the Communist from the Western world. In the second place the authors seem to lean to the view that the purges act as lightning- conductors for the discontent of the masses. They keep open vast numbers of avenues of promotion by ensuring a rapid turnover of managerial posts. At the same time they afford a guarantee against the emergence of a new governing class which might seek to serve its own interests.
This is the view held by a Soviet General with whom I happened for a time to be thrown into contact during the war in the Mediter- ranean theatre. He was a seasoned but in some respects almost likeable Communist, and orr long journeys we made together I used often to argue with him: I suggested that his son was bound to find himself in a privileged position in relation to the sons of other Soviet officials who were not trusted with confidential missions abroad.
This he strenuously denied. He said that a condition of the survival of the Soviet regime was that it should be constantly re- cruited from the lowest strata of the population. It was necessary not only that this should happen, but that it should be seen to happen all the time. No one enjoyed security in any appointment.
To the suggestion that this procedure appeared not merely extra- vagant but unjust he retorted that capitalists were conditioned to think in terms only of a class society and class justice. The justice enjoyed by Soviet citizens was of a different order from ours, and, presumably, superior. But the argument could never progress, for common ground was lacking. It was like talking to the man in the moon. Whatever the true nature of Soviet society or Soviet justice may be, the authors of this book make it plain that the charges which provide the ostensible basis on which periodic purges are conducted are not taken seriously by prisoners, or judges, or even by the mass of
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