The Life, Science and Times of Lev Vasilevich Shubnikov by L. J. Reinders

Author:L. J. Reinders
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

As Pavlenko et al. write, it is impossible to ignore this statement written in his own hand. So the question is what kind of pressure forced this honest and courageous man to write what he wrote? It is unlikely that it was physical pressure, since Shubnikov ‘confessed’ already on the second day of his imprisonment. Shubnikov was a well-known scientist, he was not free from ambition. Is it possible that the ‘engineers of the human soul’ promised him scientific oblivion in case he did not confess? (Ref. [1], p. 233.) At that time his wife Olga Trapeznikova was in the last month of pregnancy of their first child, a son, who was born on 31 August and whom Shubnikov never saw.7 It may be that threats were made at her address if he were not giving in; that she would also be arrested, and that the child would be taken away and put in a children’s home under a different name, as was common practice with young children of ‘enemies of the people’, and would never know who his parents were. The NKVD is known to have used such tactics on other prisoners. Whatever the tactics were, for some reason he must have come to the realization that it was futile to resist, but why so quickly? Trapeznikova visited him once in prison, fairly soon after his arrest, and brought him some books. There was almost nothing they could talk about, she writes, it was impossible. Then they led him away. He went holding his arm behind his back. They could not say goodbye; could not even shake hands, nor come close to each other. She could only look at him, and he at her. It was the last time she saw him; she did not hear anything from or about him afterwards (Ref. [5], p. 290).

The confession was followed up the next day by a more extensive and detailed statement, in which he also names Obreimov, Lejpunsky, Korets, Landau, Rozenkevich, Gorsky, Brilliantov and Usov8 as members of the group, naming himself and Landau as the prime movers of the group. Parallel to this group there existed, according to the statement, a second group of mainly foreigners led by Weissberg and also including Martin and Barbara Ruhemann, Houtermans and Tisza. The existence of these two separate groups with the composition as mentioned here is the same as in Vladimir Gej’s testimony. The aims of the two groups mentioned by Shubnikov include: “the development at the institute of theoretical work at the expense of work of a technical and defence-related nature”; “unwillingness to carry out work of a technical and defence-related nature”, “grandiose construction of OSGO (Weissberg’s deep-cooling research station), on such a scale that the premises and equipment cannot be fully used in the coming years”, and some other related activities. Again these are not fantastic, imagined undertakings, such as murdering party leaders, complicated espionage plots, blowing up the country or trying to overthrow the government, but rather detailed acts

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