RUSSIANS BACK KRAVCHENKO
Knell, Raymond
Russians Back Kravchenko By Raymond Knell /............ I - "S "' Victor Kravchenko has won his libel suit against the Communist def amers of his book. / Chote Freedom. This is a first-hand...
...But in calmer moments he has shown himself to be a quick-witted debater...
...some years ago and are still vegetating in DP camps...
...These facts contained nothing that had not been known before, but told by the victims themselves, naming names, dates and places, they produced a marked impression upon the'public and the court...
...All of these witnesses made substantially the same statements, namely, that Kravchenko was a disreputable character, a minor Soviet official, and an embezzler of state funds...
...Kravchenko filed a libel suit against the author, but the editor refused to disclose his identity...
...He saw women beaten up, special cells for children, prisoners taken to execution...
...Lest there be any doubt that the Soviet Government "was ah active participant in the trial, defense counsel displayed documents about Kravchehko'4 military service, party activity, etcj which could not have been obtained anywhere except from Moscow...
...The trial has occupied the attention of many reporters, foreign diplomats, prominent French leaders, and of course the Paris public...
...the Soviet Government has spared neither effort nor money to try to refute the charges levelled against it...
...It all started when a pro-Soviet periodical, Lettres Francaises, published an article vilifying Kravchenko and branding his book as a wholesale lie, fabricated on orders from the American "secret police...
...That the verdict of the court will be in favor of Kravchenko seems si foregone conclusion, But more Important than the legal outcome is the fact that the, mighty Soviet Government wa3 exposed by a handful of its'own former subjects...
...Afterward, Stalin's statur was erected in the village...
...But witnesses who had known the Kravchcnkos in Russia...
...The Red Dean of Canterbury extended his blessing to the defendant, cited his own books praising the Soviet regime, and at one point made this pertinent remark: "If Kravchenko has told the truth, then I have lied...
...In one of his strongest rebuttals Kravchenko reminded the court that Hitler's allies of 1939 should be more careful in branding other people as German collaborators...
...They were supported by an international array of fellowtravelers, among them French cryptoCommunists, who have visited the Soviet Union but never observed there any traces of a police* state...
...Other badly-rehearsed defense witnesses asserted that the book was actually written by Russian Menshcviks...
...AS IF TO EMPHASIZE THIS FACT...
...Another was thrown into a 24-man prison cell which contained 136 inmates...
...Instead, the editor himself appeared at the trial as defendant, flanked by several pro'-Sovjet attorneys...
...This is a first-hand account of tbt trial.—Ed...
...The editor of his paper sometimes sent him to factories to obtain the names of two or three workers which he would sign to articles praising the happy Soviet life...
...and had never heard of executions or purges...
...Questioned about her father, she declared that he was dead...
...Zinalda Gorlova declared that Kravchenko had beaten her, luid had generally behaved like a tramp...
...and had worked with him...
...stated that her father was in a concentration enmp in Siberia...
...During the war he was deported by the Germans* to forced labor in the Reich...
...Kravchenko displayed considerable courage in exposing himself to Soviet vengeance, which more than once has destroyel lesser foes abroad...
...PARIS—For some months Victor Kravchenko and his book, I Chose Freedom, have been the center of a sensational trial here, involving the the Soviet regime...
...Urged to sign u false confession that he was to Trotskyitc, he refused, was tied to a stool and kept there for six days and nights without food or drink.' On the seventh day he agreed to sign the confession and was sentenced to eight years at forced labor...
...itself has been on trial...
...Sometimes he jumped from his seat, and a hurricane of Russian invective — which flabbergasted interpreters were unable to translate—would sweep the courtroom...
...They denied the existence of concentration camps in the U>S.S.R...
...But only a ffw appeared...
...Having learned through the press of the forthcoming trial, 5,000 of them offered to testify that the picture of Soviet life drawn in / Chose Freedom is correct...
...and of course Albert Kahn, introduced to the court as "one of tho most prominent American journalists...
...Some had known Kravchenko in the U.S.S.R...
...i. • • * SEVERAL DOZEN PRO-SOVIET witnesses were scheduled to arrive in Paris from the U.S.S.R., among them an army general, a member of the Supreme Soviet, and Kravchenko's former wife, Zinnida Gorlova...
...A galaxy of witnesses from the U.S.S.R., for whom the ban on trips abroad was lifted, appeared m Paris to testify for the defense...
...KRAVCHENKO'S WITNESSES were Russian DP's who left the U.S.S.R...
...the British Soviet apologist, Koni Zilliacus...
...One of the DP's testified that in the years of collectivization she and her little child were dispossessed of their home, and that the infant died of exposure...
...To decide whether Kravchenko's statements in his book were true or false, the court has had to examine eye witnesses of conditions in the USSR...
...Thus a picture of Soviet life has been unfolding at this unusual legal performance, and in a sense the U.S.S.R...
...A newspaperman stated that he had visited a collectivized farm, in which 30 percent of the farmers had died from hunger...
...Hftrdpressed by the defense to present official documentation, most of them fell into, utter confusion...
...The defense tried to weaken this impression by implying that Russian DP's were all traitors, fascists and collaborators who feared to return home...
...Who should know better than they how happy 'and free life is in tho "Socialist fatherland...
...The article was signed with the pen-name of an allegedly American writer...
...This was also a Soviet Union, but a different one...
...Kahn declared that Kravchenko's book was sponsored by Ukrainian fascists in the U.S.A., thus unwittingly contradicting the official defense version concerning the American "secret police...
...He played a leading roie in the proceedings, and often passionately assailed defense witnesses, revealing their deliberate falsehoods...
Vol. 32 • April 1949 • No. 15
