David Bergelson

Writer and playwright. Lived in Europe from 1921 and returned to the Soviet Union in 1929. A Socialist Realist prose writer who wrote in Yiddish. In Moscow, he lived in the 'House of Writers'. A member of the Presidium of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), established in 1942 to raise support for the Soviet Union from 'Jewish brothers throughout the world'. The activities of the JAC helped pave the way for the opening of the Second Front.

Arrested in January 1949, he was charged with Jewish nationalism, establishing an anti-Soviet underground organisation, ties to American intelligence, and high treason. The testimony against him was fabricated, and beatings and torture were used during the investigation. The trial was held behind closed doors–without the public and without the participation of either the prosecution or the defence. In July 1952, he was sentenced to death by firing squad with confiscation of property. He was executed on 12 August 1952. His ashes were interred in Common Grave No. 3 for unclaimed ashes at the New Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow. He was rehabilitated in 1955.

1950s

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The Final Statement

‘I ask the Supreme Court to give me, an elderly Jewish writer, the opportunity to devote the remainder of my strength to the service of the people and to become worthy of the ideal of a Soviet citizen.’

I am not a poet, and I simply wish to say that I never engaged in any hostile activity against the Party or the Soviet Government.

I stated this during the trial, and I repeat it now.

I was not part of the core of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, because no such core existed, and I knew nothing of any hostile conspiracy.

I knew that the Committee had been established to mobilise people in the struggle against fascism. No evidence has been presented that I personally collected or transmitted any espionage materials abroad or instructed anyone to gather such materials. However, I do feel a sense of guilt, and I wish to speak of it before the Supreme Court of the USSR.

I took too lightly the fact that I had been appointed to the Presidium of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. I knew that the list of members of the Presidium had been drawn up by Epstein. He included names that would ‘carry weight’ abroad, so that no one there could claim that the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was a political organisation.

The fact that the Central Committee of the Communist Party approved my appointment placed upon me a great responsibility and entrusted me with oversight of the materials that the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee sent abroad.

I should have supervised the Committee’s activities, but I failed to do so, and the Committee became engaged in other matters. For that reason I failed to become a true Soviet citizen and did not justify the trust placed in me by the Party and the Government, even though my own participation in the Committee’s work was minimal.

There were veteran Party members in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee who, like me, also ‘failed to notice’ what was happening. For this I feel personally responsible.

I ask the Presiding Judge and the honourable Judges to take my entire life into consideration and, although I did not attain the standard of a true Soviet citizen, to remember that I came to it from what was, in effect, a ‘medieval’ background.

My literary work was highly esteemed both in the Soviet Union and abroad.

I was compared with Gorky and with Flaubert. I was compared with the great Russian writers from whom I learned and whom I love. I devoted my entire gift as a writer to the working people, not to the wealthy class from which I came.

I ask the Court to note that none of the Jewish writers of my generation entered Soviet literature. Such were Sholem Asch, Bialik, Numberg, and others. I alone of that entire generation of writers embraced the ideas of Lenin and Stalin and devoted the last thirty years to Soviet themes. I strove to attain the standard of a true Soviet citizen, but I fell short–perhaps only by a little–and for that I am guilty.

I am guilty of not attaining the level of vigilance expected of a Soviet citizen.

I ask the Supreme Court to give me, an elderly Jewish writer, the opportunity to devote the remainder of my strength to the service of the people and to become worthy of the ideal of a Soviet citizen.

11 July 1952
Judicial Collegium of the Supreme Court, Moscow, Soviet Union.
Source: Unjust Trial: Stalin’s Last Execution.
For further information: Wikipedia.
Photo: S. N. Strunnikov.