The murder of Isaac Babel
Frydman, Anne
In the Soviet periodical Ogonyok (Number 39, 1989), an article about the last days of the great Russian writer Isaac Babel appeared, based on documents kept secret until now in the...
...Shentalinski's article describes the contents of the folder marked "Case #419, I. E. Babel" and offers some commentary...
...It is necessary to extend the term of investigation again...
...Only a few more additions and the new bill of indictment is ready...
...May 29, 30, and 31: the first interrogation...
...The request was denied...
...We ask you to consider one of the following options: 1. You can leave a specific amount or a particular asset...
...Shentalinski speculates that these were likely the most terrible days of Babel's life...
...Babel is quoted as saying at one such soirée, "A writer should write sincerely, but what he writes most sincerely cannot be printed, as it will not be in harmony with the Party line...
...June 19: the indictment is read...
...The investigation's work is now wrecked...
...from the December 11, 1937, interrogation of the writer Boris Pilnyak (sentenced to be shot), quoted as, "He, Pilnyak, agitated on behalf of overt Trotskyites such as Voronsky, Seifulina, Babel, and others...
...WINTER • 1991 • 117 Notebook tion, as required, were obtained from Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova (Gorky's widow), Ilya Ehrenburg, and Valentin Kataev...
...In Babel's case, his arrest warrant was signed by Beria thirty-five days after the actual arrest, and after May 15 testimony was quoted from men who were themselves under interrogation and eventually shot...
...The same person claims that he felt he ought to at least publish something, as his silence was becoming an openly anti-Soviet act...
...The fate of these communications is not known to me...
...and from the July 26, 1938, interrogation of A.I...
...October 10: Akopov summons the accused for interrogation...
...To the Chief Prosecutor of the Soviet Union from I. E. Babel, under arrest, former member of the Soviet Writer's Union...
...On certain occasions while giving testimony I cast aspersions on myself...
...There is again an unexplained delay of a month...
...it is obvious from it that he had been beaten and that his glasses had been taken from him, if not smashed, which would have left him hardly able to see...
...A statement is recorded: "I ask this inquiry to take into account that though in prison I committed a crime: I slandered several persons...
...The inner prison of the Central Office of Security...
...In the Soviet periodical Ogonyok (Number 39, 1989), an article about the last days of the great Russian writer Isaac Babel appeared, based on documents kept secret until now in the Lubyanka Prison and only recently accessible "in the light of glasnost...
...Another source supposedly quotes Ezhova as saying that Babel was involved with Ukrainian and military Trotskyites, and that the arrests of each of them made Babel's arrest more certain and necessary, and that the only thing that could save him was his fame in Europe...
...I bequeath $ to the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas...
...The documents were reviewed and the article written by Vitali Shentalinski, deputy chairman of the All-Soviet Commission on the Artistic Legacy of Suppressed Writers...
...The answer: "This is to inform you that manuscripts and notebooks are not preserved...
...January 24, 1964: The military prosecutor writes to the KGB requesting Babel's seized manuscripts...
...The investigating officer, named Serikov, appears intent on extracting information about terrorist activity, and he succeeds...
...The judges consist of a "troika" of experienced men, including a military judge...
...I am not guilty...
...of having anti-Soviet conversations with prominent artists, such as Olesha, Kataev, Mikhoels, and Eisenstein...
...She committed suicide...
...The Ogonyok article has a photograph of Babel from the case file labeled "the last photograph of I. Babel...
...It has become known to me through the words of those questioning me that my case is to be reviewed by the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of the USSR...
...My primary obligation as I see it is to remove this terrible stain from my conscience...
...He expresses his opinion that the case made against Babel was "utter nonsense...
...There is also much evidence in the file, as Shentalinski points out, of the prevailing illegality of all such police action...
...The Investigation The Lubyanka Prison, 2 Dzerzhinsky Square...
...He is given the chance to speak...
...I wish to make a statement that bears on the essence of my case and that is of unusual significance to it, and therefore I ask to be heard...
...November 5, 1939: Babel writes an appeal to the chief prosecutor...
...As an addendum to my communication of November 5, 1939, I write a second time to 116 • DISSENT Notebook request to be summoned for interrogation...
...December, 1939: The Lubyanka no longer accepts money intended for Babel...
...January 25: On the day before the appointed court session, Babel sends a statement to the Military Tribunal of the High Court...
...None of his requests is granted...
...On November 5 and November 21, 1939, and on January 2, 1940, I wrote to the Soviet Chief Prosecutor that I can make a statement succinctly pertaining to the heart of my case and to the slander I committed in my testimony to a number of entirely guiltless people...
...This commission was created in December 1988 by the literary community in order "to carry out the enormous task of searching archives and documents, of preparing works and documents for publication, and of keeping alive the memories of innocent writers who suffered" under Stalin...
...The slander was called forth by my faintheartedness during interrogation...
...from the July 7, 1937, interrogation of N. N. Zarudin (sentenced to be shot), in which he claims that Babel was one of a number of writers influenced by the editor Voronsky to feel "hatred and enmity toward Communist Party leaders" and that Babel was to have taken part in terrorist activities...
...June 15: interrogation...
...I never tolerated a single act against the Soviet Union...
...Babel is accused of violating four articles of the criminal code in full knowledge of the crimes...
...When Voronsky was in exile, Babel and Seifulina travelled to see him in order to get instructions...
...Several such articles of clothing had been hidden during the May 15 search, when everything of Babel's was removed, and Pirozhkova now sends them doused with perfume, "to send Babel greetings from home, . . . at least a familiar scent...
...of accepting Trotskyite influence on his work (such as emphasizing the cruel and absurd aspects of the Civil War in Red Cavalry, rather than the inspiring example of the united Red Army on the Cossack consciousness, or departing from Soviet reality in The Odessa Stories...
...In the inner prison of the NKVD, two statements were written by me addressed to the Soviet Chief Prosecutor—on November 5 and November 21, 1939—about the fact that in my testimonies innocent people have been slandered...
...I am petitioning that the Prosecutor hear out all that regards these statements until the matter be resolved...
...It is summarized here and set as much as possible in the form of a chronicle, from the time of Babel's arrest until his end, and somewhat beyond...
...In testimonies I gave, false and fictitious assertions are included ascribing anti-Soviet activity to persons honestly and selflessly working for the good of the Soviet Union...
...2. You can leave a specific percentage of your estate...
...Many questions were put to him about his visits to Paris...
...I was no spy...
...Shentalinski comments that Babel appeared to be agreeing to everything they seemed to want to hear...
...The note is on a scrap of paper, written in an uneven hand...
...November 21: Not having received an answer from the chief prosecutor's office, Babel writes there again, again on a scrap of paper and in an equally unsteady hand...
...The thought that my words not only serve to hinder this investigation but might bring my country direct harm causes me unspeakable suffering...
...For more specifics on this or other information on gift planning, feel free to phone or write Dissent, 521 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...A statement that is clearly included in File #419 is quoted: "The sentence was carried out on January 27, 1940, in Moscow...
...Babel is charged with being an active member of a counterrevolutionary Trotskyite organization, conducting spy work on behalf of Austrian and French intelligence, and planning terrorist acts against Party and government leaders...
...No consideration is given to what was said...
...File #419 contains a record of what was taken in the search apart from correspondence and photographs: (1) fifteen folders of manuscripts, (2) eleven notebooks, and (3) seven notepads...
...Differing little from its previous version, Case #419 is ready to be sent to the chief prosecutor to be tried...
...Shentalinski comments that it turns out to be the crucial moment of the case...
...All his manuscripts were seized...
...Babel is brought in, the accusations against him read...
...He also asks that people who know him well—including Voronsky, Ehrenburg, and Seifulina— be called as witnesses and that he be given the chance to acquaint himself with the case being made against him...
...At present the KGB maintains that there are no Babel manuscripts in existence...
...and of WINTER • 1991 • 115 Notebook establishing espionage connections in 1933 through Ilya Ehrenburg with the French writer Andre Malraux, to whom he passed information about the state of the air force, government spending, arrests made, the mood of the intelligentsia...
...Babel denies all his previous testimony...
...She informs him that up till then she had received word each year that he was alive and being held in a labor camp...
...I slandered myself and others under duress...
...June 25: interrogation...
...Serikov seeks to build up the accusation of spying...
...November 6: The note is sent off by the prison's chief administrator...
...January 26: The trial is held in Beria's office in the Butyrka Prison...
...June 1954: A military prosecutor who has undertaken the review of Babel's case summons Pirozhkova...
...I knew these people to be honest and staunch Soviet citizens...
...Information concerning place of burial is not available...
...The thought that my testimonies not only do not serve the matter of clarifying the truth but are leading the investigation to mistaken conjectures torments me unceasingly...
...In August Babel writes a letter to Beria requesting that he be allowed to put his manuscripts in order...
...The time allotment for each case is twenty minutes...
...At first he admitted to no guilt, then later he suddenly confessed...
...In August, Serikov writes for an extension of the investigation until September 10: "In the Babel case it is still necessary to determine foreign contacts, document criminal activity and also map out the line of attack...
...After distributing the specific bequests listed above (to others in your will), I leave the remainder of my estate to the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas...
...The sentence—that he be shot—had been decided beforehand, as Shentalinski comments...
...0 118 • DISSENT...
...What follows is a summary of the process of Babel's "rehabilitation...
...Then Serikov suddenly disappears and three new figures come forward to handle the investigation—one Kuleshov, Lieutenant Akopov, and Captain Rodos...
...This becomes the date found in all encyclopedia entries about Babel...
...January 25, 1954: A. N. Pirozhkova, Babel's widow, writes to the Soviet chief prosecutor requesting that Babel's case be reviewed...
...They contain drafts of sketches about collectivization and about the kolkhozes of the Ukraine, materials for a book about Gorky, drafts of a few dozen stories, a half-finished play, a finished version of a scenario...
...December 18, 1954: The Supreme Court of the Military Collegium declares that no evidence of guilt on Babel's part can be established, and notes further that two of the investigators involved with the case, Rodos and Shvartzman, had been arrested as falsifiers of information...
...For the "new" case against Babel, testimony is drawn: From the May 11, 1939, interrogation of Ezhov (sentenced to be shot), in which he says that, he reckons likely, both his wife Evgeniya Solomonovna Ezhova and Babel were linked to espionage on behalf of English intelligence...
...Our legal name is the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas...
...January 1955: Although the date of Babel's execution had appeared in the file of rehabilitation, now the military prosecutor announces to the military division of prosecution that Pirozhkova is to be informed that Babel died on March 17, 1941, while being held in prison...
...These manuscripts represent eight years of creative work, part of which I had expected to prepare for publication...
...The case could now be brought to trial, but for some reason nothing happens for almost two and a half months...
...Babel's testimony at this time includes admission of a long association with Trotskyites, most notably Voronsky, editor of the literary journal Red Virgin Soil...
...3. You can leave the remainder of your estate...
...Babel's widow, A. N. Pirozhkova, recalls in her memoir that before the November 7 holiday a young NKVD officer came to the Moscow apartment with a request for pants, socks, and handkerchiefs to be taken to Babel...
...Babel testifies about foreign friends, about meetings with Malraux in France in 1935 and then in the Soviet Union in 1936...
...July 1954: Three letters recommending rehabilitaA LEGACY OF IDEAS A bequest of any size can be of lasting benefit to Dissent and help ensure that the ideas and beliefs you hold dear will continue to have a public forum...
...I ascribed anti-Soviet acts and tendencies to the writer I. Ehrenburg, T. Konovalov, M. Feierovich, L. Tumerman, 0. Brodskaya, and a group of journalists . . . . All this is untrue and has no basis whatsoever...
...I bequeath % of my estate to the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas...
...There will be no reply...
...He has been transferred to Butyrka Prison, and from there he sends a third letter to the chief prosecutor...
...Stetski, former head of the Central Committee Department of Culture and Propaganda (sentenced to be shot): "I worked with writers in an anti-Soviet spirit, setting them—Babel among them—in antipathy to the Party line...
...Arrest Babel was arrested on the morning of May 16, 1939 [the correct date is May 15], at his dacha in Peredelkino, to which he had recently moved from Moscow in order to complete a new collection of short stories...
...10017 (212) 595-3084...
...Babel's testimony is about Ezhov's role in planning the assassinations of Stalin and Voroshilov...
...At least two claim to have met Babel at the evening soirees of Evgeniya Solomonovna Ezhova, the wife of NKVD Chief Ezhov, who was arrested in April 1939...
...A search of his apartment in Moscow was carried out simultaneously with his arrest...
Vol. 38 • January 1991 • No. 1
