Vyshinsky Quotes

Vyshinsky: Why did you write the poem? Rostov: It demanded to be written. I simply happened to be sitting at the particular desk on the particular morning when it chose to make its demands.

Vyshinsky: And you write poetry? Rostov: I have been known to fence with a quill.

The whole history of mankind proves that the state had its origin in class contradictions and conflicts created by the development of tribal society, in the need to 'curb class opposition.' It was precisely this fact that made the state the organ of the authority of the strongest - economically dominant - class which, with the support of the state, thus becomes the most powerful class politically as well.

In 1934, at the January Plenum of the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the Soviet Communist Party, the Great Leader (having already in mind, no doubt, how many he would soon have to do away with) declared that the withering away of the state (which had been awaited virtually from 1920 on) would arrive via, believe it or not, the maximum intensification of state power. This was so unexpectedly brilliant that it was not given to every little mind to grasp it, but Vyshinsky, ever the loyal apprentice, immediately picked it up: "And this means the maximum strengthening of corrective-labor institutions." Entry into socialism via the maximum strengthening of prisons! And this was not some satirical magazine cracking a joke, either, but was said by the Prosecutor General of the Soviet Union!

Andrei Yanuaryevich (one longs to blurt out, “Jaguaryevich”) Vyshinsky, availing himself of the most flexible dialectics (of a sort nowadays not permitted either Soviet citizens or electronic calculators, since to them yes is yes and no is no), pointed out in a report which became famous in certain circles that it is never possible for mortal men to establish absolute truth, but relative truth only. He then proceeded to a further step, which jurists of the last two thousand years had not been willing to take: that the truth established by interrogation and trial could not be absolute, but only, so to speak, relative. Therefore, when we sign a sentence ordering someone to be shot we can never be absolutely certain, but only approximately, in view of certain hypotheses, and in a certain sense, that we are punishing a guilty person. Thence arose the most practical conclusion: that it was useless to seek absolute evidence-for evidence is always relative-or unchallengeable witnesses-for they can say different things at different times. The proofs of guilt were relative, approximate, and the interrogator could find them, even when there was no evidence and no witness, without leaving his office, “basing his conclusions not only on his own intellect but also on his Party sensitivity, his moral forces” (in other words, the superiority of someone who has slept well, has been well fed, and has not been beaten up) “and on his character” (i.e., his willingness to apply cruelty!)… In only one respect did Vyshinsky fail to be consistent and retreat from dialectical logic: for some reason, the executioner’s bullet which he allowed was not relative but absolute…

It turns out that in that terrible year Andrei Yanuaryevich (one longs to blurt out, “Jaguaryevich”) Vyshinsky, availing himself of the most flexible dialectics (of a sort nowadays not permitted either Soviet citizens or electronic calculators, since to them yes is yes and no is no), pointed out in a report which became famous in certain circles that it is never possible for mortal men to establish absolute truth, but relative truth only. He then proceeded to a further step, which jurists of the last two thousand years had not been willing to take: that the truth established by interrogation and trial could not be absolute, but only, so to speak, relative. Therefore, when we sign a sentence ordering someone to be shot we can never be absolutely certain, but only approximately, in view of certain hypotheses, and in a certain sense, that we are punishing a guilty person. Thence arose the most practical conclusion: that it was useless to seek absolute evidence—for evidence is always relative—or unchallengeable witnesses—for they can say different things at different times. The proofs of guilt were relative, approximate, and the interrogator could find them, even when there was no evidence and no witness, without leaving his office, “basing his conclusions not only on his own intellect but also on his Party sensitivity, his moral forces” (in other words, the superiority of someone who has slept well, has been well fed, and has not been beaten up) “and on his character” (i.e., his willingness to apply cruelty!). In only one respect did Vyshinsky fail to be consistent and retreat from dialectical logic: for some reason, the executioner’s bullet which he allowed was not relative but absolute. . . . Thus it was that the conclusions of advanced Soviet jurisprudence, proceeding in a spiral, returned to barbaric or medieval standards. Like medieval torturers, our interrogators, prosecutors, and judges agreed to accept the confession of the accused as the chief proof of guilt.

APPEARANCE OF COUNT ALEXANDER ILYICH ROSTOV BEFORE THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS Presiding: Comrades V. A. Ignatov, M. S. Zakovsky, A. N. Kosarev Prosecuting: A. Y. Vyshinsky Prosecutor Vyshinsky: State your name. Rostov: Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt. Vyshinsky: You may have your titles; they are of no use to anyone else. But for the record, are you not Alexander Rostov, born in St. Petersburg, 24 October 1889? Rostov: I am he. Vyshinsky: Before we begin, I must say, I do not think that I have ever seen a jacket festooned with so many buttons. Rostov: Thank you. Vyshinsky: It was not meant as a compliment. Rostov: In that case, I demand satisfaction on the field of honor.

Vyshinsky: It was not meant as a compliment. Rostov: In that case, I demand satisfaction on the field of honor.

Vyshinsky: And your occupation?

Vyshinsky: And your occupation? Rostov: It is not the business of gentlemen to have occupations. Vyshinsky: Very well then. How do you spend your time? Rostov: Dining, discussing. Reading, reflecting. The usual rigmarole.

Vyshinsky: Why did you write the poem? Rosov: It demanded to be written. I simply happened to be sitting at the particular desk on the particular morning when it chose to make its demands. Vyshinksy: And where was that exactly? Rostov: In the south parlor at Idlehour. Vyshinksy: Idlehour? Rosov: The Rostov estate in Nizhny Novgorod. Vyshinksy: Ah, yes. Of course. How apt. But let us return our attention to your poem. Coming as it did-in the more subdued years after the failed revolt of 1905--many considered it a call to action. Would you agree with that assessment? Rosov: All poetry is a call to action.

Vyshinsky: And your occupation? Rostov: It is not the business of gentlemen to have occupations.

This was the first time that the British Ambassador had succeeded in making such an arrangement. Every precaution was taken by the police. One of my guests, M. Vyshinsky, on passing some of the N.K.V.D. armed guards on our staircase, remarked, “Apparently the Red Army has had another victory. It has occupied the British Embassy.

Vyshinsky: Why did you write that poem? Rostov: It demanded to be written. I simply happened to be sitting at the particular desk on the particular morning when it chose to make its demands.

Vyshinsky showed the new Soviet ploy: to obscure Russian expansion and Russian tyranny by direct and repeated reminders of former Western imperialism and the Pax Britannica, of which the West had grown ashamed.

Korkunov.... correctly notes that all the phenomena of state life cannot possibly be reduced to the manifestation of any single will.

Marxism-Leninism thus draws a sharp line between the bourgeois and the proletarian viewpoint of the state - between bourgeois and proletarian theories concerning the state - and finally discloses as myth the proposition that the state is neutral and is above all classes.

During the great trials in Moscow, the procurator Andrei Vyshinsky, who was an intellectual with a traditional classical training, threw himself into a veritable frenzy of animalization: “Shoot these rabid dogs! Death to this gang who hide their ferocious teeth, their eagle claws, from the people! Down with that vulture Trotsky, from whose mouth a bloody venom drips, putrefying the great ideals of Marxism! Let’s put these liars out of harm’s way, these miserable pygmies who dance around rotting carcasses! Down with these abject animals! Let’s put an end once and for all to these miserable hybrids of foxes and pigs, these stinking corpses! Let their horrible squeals finally come to an end! Let’s exterminate the mad dogs of capitalism, who want to tear to pieces the flower of our new Soviet nation! Let’s push the bestial hatred they bear our leaders back down their own throats!” (Qtd. In The Black Book of Communism, p. 750.)