The central part of the story "Tomb for Boris Davidovič" by Danilo Kish describes the long and exhausting negotiations between the investigator of the Stalinist secret police Fedjukin and the imprisoned revolutionary BD Novski about the content of the false confession that the latter will sign. It was clear to both actors that the accusation of espionage, sabotage and hostile association was completely fabricated, but nevertheless each of them tried to adjust the content and tone of the official "confession of guilt" as much as possible to what they considered to be their own interest at that moment. . A compromise was sought between two opposing aspirations.
The negotiations were preceded by brutal torture, because of which Novski was physically crushed, but also - bluntly resigned to death - persistent in refusing any form of cooperation. Things change when Fedjukin comes up with an ingenious idea: until the accused confesses to the fabricated guilt, one detainee will be shot every day in front of his eyes, so that the idea of "killing them with his own hands" is implanted in him. Paradoxically, Novski breaks down at the moment when one of the young men, before ending up with two bullets in the head, gets in his face and encourages him to persevere: "Boris Davidovich, don't give in to the sons of dogs!"
The perverse diplomatic battle between the regime's executioner and his victim has been going on for weeks, night after night, "leaning in thick cigarette smoke over those pages" they fight for every word in the text of the confession. The goal of the accused is to enter into the final document wording that could "whisper to the future researcher, through skillfully woven contradictions and exaggerations, that the entire edifice of that confession rests on a lie squeezed out without a doubt by torture."
Kish writes: "Novsky fought to preserve the dignity of not only his character but also the character of revolutionaries in general in his death, in his fall, and Fedyukin, in his search for fiction and conditionalities, tried to preserve the rigor and consistency of revolutionary justice and those who share that justice; because it is better that the so-called truth of one single person, one tiny organism, should suffer, than that higher principles and interests should be called into question because of it."
The latter, by the way, carried by the power of conviction, sincerely despised the "painful selfishness of the accused", their pathological need to prove their innocence, "their own little truth", their neurotic "spinning in the circle of so-called facts", and that "this blind truth of theirs he is not able to place himself in the system of a higher value": "Therefore, for Fedyukin, anyone who could not understand the simple fact, almost visible to the naked eye, that signing a confession in the name of duty was not only a logical but also a moral thing, became a blood enemy. therefore worthy of respect.”
What happens, however, when Fedyukin, instead of the guardian of the Stalinist dictatorship, becomes the guardian of liberal democracy? Or another way: why are the works of writers who presented us with dark shades of totalitarian gray - such as Orwell or Kish - especially relevant today in that part of the world that said goodbye to totalitarianism forever?
Thanks to the participation of a larger set of lawyers and politicians, the dramaturgy of months of negotiations between US law enforcement authorities and Julian Assange resulted in his release - more precisely: his guilty plea to the charge of conspiracy against the national security of the United States, which was then sealed with a sentence of 62 months of imprisonment, just as long as he has already served in a London prison - he hardly has a literary potential worthy of Kish's novella. After all, the stakes are not the same either: Assange was saving his head, and Novski was saving the legend, knowing that his head was already lost. Nevertheless, regardless of the absence of torture devices and methods of persuasion characteristic of the Bolshevik imagination, the final judicial file contains wordings that can "whisper to the future researcher" that "the entire edifice of that confession rests on a lie squeezed out without a doubt by torture".
Assange, in fact, spent twelve years behind bars (before the London prison he was detained in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years), in circumstances that Chris Hedges described as "an execution in slow motion", and he was threatened with a sentence of 175 years in the original indictment. prison, because he dared to defame the institute of state secrets and make it publicly available, and the state secret contained evidence of crimes, corruption and abuses of power. If we ignore the mentioned nuances, the key difference in the "negotiating positions" of BD Novski and J. Assange lies in the fact that the regime that tyrannized the former did not call itself democratic.
Compared to the banal choice that stood before the founder of WikiLeaks - to accept life imprisonment or to sign a forced confession and finally smell freedom - Fedyukin's negotiating task of the guardian of order was therefore much more challenging: how to keep totalitarian dreams and send a clear totalitarian message, while at the same time preserving democratic reputation and save liberal honor? How to present the abortion of democracy as an investment in its salvation, when, for the sake of the full acoustic effect of the rattling, it is necessary for Janus to hold both ends of the chain?
In its own way, the choice of the location where the exchange of confessions and verdicts took place - the island of Saipal in the Pacific Ocean is both inside and outside the United States, far enough from the mainland, and close enough that American laws apply. Something like a twisted version of the Guantanamo base, which is under the administration of the US military, but where American laws do not apply, which expands the space of will and leaves wonderful opportunities for the organization of illegal torture and detention.
Washing throats with solemn slogans about freedom of speech, press & political belief, and waterboarding the throats of damned enemies, have long been practices in a worrying conflict. If it seems to you, for example, that the politically agreed outcome of the "Assange case" in itself confirms that it was a political trial, this is a signal that you are not entirely comfortable in the cynical matrix of maintaining the status quo, and therefore a reason for concern , because the pool of suspects is getting wider.
In any case, the conscience of liberals is finally soothed. The object of their contempt is no longer in shackles, he does not cause discomfort with his martyrdom, and without inhibitions they can return to earlier slanderous campaigns, from the fabrication that he indulged in rape in Sweden, to the joke that he "threatened the lives of innocent people" with his posts, to the insinuation that removed Hillary Clinton from power and set up WikiLeaks as a para-intelligence agency for Putin and Trump.
The existence of a state secret, a hidden zone into which only the dedicated are allowed to see, while access to the so-called free citizens is strictly prohibited, remains a matter of course, even when it hides the truth about crimes - especially when it hides the truth about crimes! - because it is better for the truth to suffer, than for "higher principles and interests to be called into question" because of it. Now a corresponding threat has been added: although the Espionage Act has existed for more than a hundred years, it is the first time a journalist has been convicted of violating it.
Who knows, maybe the case of Edward Snowden will be resolved soon through negotiations. Perhaps systemic cynicism has advanced so far that he is offered a guilty plea, with the guarantee that his stay in Moscow will count as a prison sentence served? Let us remind you that Snowden introduced the general public to the state's illegal intrusion into the privacy of millions of so-called free citizens, so in fear of retaliation from American democracy, he had to flee to the Russian satrapy. Out of a pathological desire to save himself from life imprisonment, he confused the sides of the world.
The logic is so striking that it is worth highlighting as a warning: for exposing the attack on liberal-democratic values, the whistle-blower comes under attack from a regime whose fist is in the service of liberal-democratic values.
Fedyukin would therefore have his hands full. All the more so as it would be expected to contribute to the terminological destruction in which Eastern Inferno and Western Eden must survive as landmarks. It is certain that Assange's predecessor, the whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, who sometimes called his homeland the United Stasi of America, would not have helped him.
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