TIMES TEN

William H. Payne

Universal Publishers/uPUBLISH.com1999

Copyright © 1999 William H. PayneAll rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-58112-838-X

Published byUniversal Publishers/uPUBLISH.com

1999

www.upublish.com/books/payne2.htm

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Author’s Note

Most of the events described in this book are factual. Others,however, are the author’s view of what probably occurred.

This story runs on three tracks. The first might best be called“silk purse”. The second slowly develops the largely ignoredaccumulation of horror within the borders of America’s oldwartime ally, The Soviet Union, whose leaders murdered morepeople inside their gloomy country than were killed by all thebattles of World War II. The third illustrates the affection of ourintellectual betters for those who began a holocaust before Hitler,continued it long after Hitler died and disposed of ten times asmuch human detritus.

At the end of many chapters you will find alternatingepisodes which contrast the lives of the beneficiaries of Stalin’slargess with the fawning of western thinkers. All of these episodesare fact based, not simply probable.

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Table of Contents

Author’s Note........................................................................................iiiSources.................................................................................................viiDedicated..............................................................................................xiPrologue..............................................................................................xiii1888.....................................................................................................151889 - A Fruitful Year..........................................................................171905 - Spears in St. Petersburg............................................................191908 - Ore............................................................................................251910 - Rosa Emerges...........................................................................271913 - Reading Rosa............................................................................301917 - The Trench................................................................................341918 - Pounds of Flesh.........................................................................381919 - Abusing Willie..........................................................................421920 – Bumps in the Russian Road......................................................501921 - Who’s The Enemy?...................................................................561922 - Dealing with the Devil..............................................................621923 - The Beer Hall............................................................................671924 - Herman Arrives.........................................................................751928 - Willie Fights Back....................................................................831929 - Loans Come Due.......................................................................901930 - A Small Rumbling....................................................................941931 - Courting Kapitsa.....................................................................1001932 - Philosophers............................................................................1071933 - Frenkel’s Grand Plan..............................................................1161934 - Adversaries Meet....................................................................1231935 - Watching Hahn.......................................................................1321936 - Article 58................................................................................1381937 - Thirty Million.........................................................................1441938 - An Evening of Films...............................................................1511939 - Eichmann Helps......................................................................1641940 - Absorbing France....................................................................1761941 - Pleading with Boland..............................................................1821942 - The Temporary Solution.........................................................1951943 - Germany’s Golden Future.......................................................2111944 - A Visit to Goldwater...............................................................2181945 - Salvation.................................................................................244Epilogue.............................................................................................258

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Sources

The Ailing Empire, Sebastian Haffner, 1991America, Russia, and the Cold War, Walter LaFeber, 1997American Judaism, Nathan Glazer, 1989American-Soviet Relations, Peter Boyle, 1993Anti-Americanism, Paul Hollander, 1992The Architect of Genocide, Richard Breitman, 1991An Atlas of Russian History, Allen Chew, 1970The Atom Bomb Spies, Montgomery Hyde, 1980Beyond Belief, Deborah Lipstadt, 1986The BibleBukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, Stephen Cohen,

1973The Cambridge Biographical DictionaryCargo of Lies, Dean Beeby, 1996Century of War, Gabriel Kolko, 1994The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth EditionA Concise History of the Russian Revolution, Richard Pipes,

1996Creating German Communism 1890-1990, Eric Weitz, 1997Der Fuehrer, Konrad Heiden, 1944Destructive Generation, Peter Collier and David Horowitz,

1990Dictionary of Judaism, Dagobert Runes, 1987A Documentary History of Communism and the World,

Robert Daniels, 1994Eichman in Jerusalem, Hanna Arendt, 1994Encyclopedia of Jewish History, Ilana Shamir, 1986Entrepreneurship in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union,

Gregory Curoff, 1983Essential Works of Lenin, Henry Christman, 1987Famine in the Ukraine 1932-33, Widener Library of Harvard

University, 1986Germany, Bettina Schumann, 1997Germany After the First World War, Richard Bessel, 1995

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The Great Terror, Robert Conquest, 1990Gulag Archipeligo, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 1992Heart of Europe, Norman Davies, 1984A History of Modern Germany, Hajo Holborn, 1969A History of the Jews, Paul Johnson, 1988The Hitler of History, John Lukacs, 1997In Defense of Marxism, Leon Trotsky, 1942Inside Hitler’s Headquarters 1939-45, General Walter

Warlimont, 1964Intellectuals, Paul Johnson, 1988Intimacy and Terror, Veronique Garros, 1995Izzy, Robert Cottrell, 1993Jewish Humor, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, 1992Jewish Power, J.J. Goldberg, 1996The Jewish Response to German Culture, Jehuda Reinharz

and Walter Schatzberg, 1985Klaus Fuchs, Atom Spy, Robert Williams, 1987Lend Me Your Ears, William Safire, 1992The Los Alamos Primer, Robert Serber, 1992Lost Victories, Field Marshall Erich von Manstein, 1958The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Richard Rhodes, 1986Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler, 1925Modern Times, Paul Johnson, 1991Nazi Germany and the Jews, Saul Friedlander, 1997Paul Robeson Speaks, Philip Foner, 1978Paul Robeson, Scott Ehrlich, 1988The Remarkable Andrew, Dalton Trumbo, 1941The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism, Gary Hamburg,

1996Rosa Luxemburg, Richard Abraham, 1989The Rosenbergs, Anita Larsen, 1992The Rosenbergs, Rob Okun, 1988Russia, Anna Benn, 1996Spy vs. Spy, Ronald Kessler, 1988Stalin, Robert Conquest, 1991Stalin and the Bomb, David Holloway, 1994The Story of Philosophy, Will Durant, 1961Taking Lives, Irving Horowitz, 1997The Torah

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The Talmud, A Close Encounter, Jacob Neusner, 1991Tramp, Joyce Milton, 1996The Unknown Lenin, Richard Pipes, 1996Venona, Robert BensonThe War Years, I.F. Stone, 1988

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Dedicated

To Allen Ginsberg, praised by CBS as “mild and thoughtful”,by ABC as a man of “candor...courage, and...energy”, by NBC asa “guru with a showman’s grace” and by the San Jose MercuryNews as “a great man” who “breathed life and yearning into all hetouched.”

To Larry Flynt, praised by Frank Rich for his “courtroombattles to protect his freedom of speech” and by Newsweek forbeing “an invaluable champion of our First Amendmentfreedoms.”

To William Burroughs whose writings Mary McCarthy saidhad a “deeply moral purpose”, who was described by the DallasMorning News as the “patron saint of outsiders” and “a dignifiedelder statesman” and whom New York Magazine described as“sweet, funny...lovely...and so much fun to play with.”

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Prologue

In 1989 the members of the humanities and social sciencedepartments of six major universities throughout Canada weresurveyed. The professors questioned were in departments ofEnglish, history, anthropology, psychology and sociology.

In answer to the question “Which countries or politicalsystems in the world do you find most unappealing?”, therespondents answered:

South Africa 14%Israel 12%The United States 12%Chile 9%Cuba 5%Romania 4%Haiti 3%In answer to the question “Which were the most shocking

historical-political events in this century?”, the respondentsanswered:

The Holocaust 52%World War I 15%Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki 10%World War II 6%SIXTY-SIX MILLION SOVIET MURDERS WEREN’T

MENTIONED

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1888

The north wind of another winter blew into the Tsar’s Akatuilabor camp, bringing many changes to the prisoners’ routine. Theprisoners were of two minds about this, because something wasgained and something lost. They would miss strolling among thegeese by the river after the workday and endless arguments amongthemselves and the guards. Somehow the waving of arms andraising of voices was more pleasant in the cool summer air than insmoky barracks.

But winter had its compensations. Now the workday wouldbe only six hours, including time for walking to and from the site,leaving one time to develop his arguments. Surely now one’sopponents could be made to see the light. Also, the orerequirements would drop to less than one hundred fifty pounds perman each day, and a layer of good fat could be added under one’sbelt.

A little body fat was hard to keep in summer, on a diet offifty ounces of bread and ten ounces of meat daily. Now the coldwind would bring sixty ounces of bread, fourteen ounces of meatand eight ounces of cereal - a feast. Many days the bread wouldn’tbe weighed at all, just set out on long tables in numberless loaves.Russia was a huge net exporter of grains, and food was plentiful.

Still, the winter life in camp was hard, bringing outdoor workhindered by heavy coats and boots, indoor life made too hot orcold by wood stoves no one could ever regulate accurately, andthe intensified lonliness of separation from family.

Bleak? Yes. But no one starved or froze or died of a beating.Everyone either served out his sentence in one camp among hisguard and prisoner friends or, if his legs were up to it, simplywalked away to Voronezh, Saratov or Petersburg.

Come through these pages and see how enlightenedBolsheviks, much loved at Columbia and Berkeley, run a realprison system. Strolling in the evening? Not when you’re dead onyour feet. Geese waddling about? Maybe for a few seconds.Arguing with guards? Not criminal guards with guns. Six or eight

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hour workdays? Try twelve to eighteen. Ore production of onehundred fifty pounds? Twenty thousand pounds would surely bebetter. Fifty ounces of bread and ten ounces of meat? An opiumdream. Outdoor work hindered by heavy clothing? No suchhindrance here. A barracks too hot for comfort? A waste of wood.Five thousand prisoners in the entire nation on a good day? Whynot fifteen million. Fifty executions a year? A million and a half isbetter for discipline, isn’t it?

And come see the German with the piercing eyes as he lookseast and shivers.

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1889 - A Fruitful Year

The year 1889 launched a remarkable number of ships whichwould collide with many casualties long afterward. These are afew.

Saratov was covered with snow when Herman Klost wasborn, but no one was cold. Germans living in the town near theVolga River were vigilant workers who procured overly sufficientcoal and wood before the Russian winter slid down the plain.Herman’s parents survived the birthing well, and a thick soup withGerman beer had his mother on her feet by sundown.

Herman’s soup was his mother’s milk, and he appeared to bewell started, despite the congenital absence of the smallest fingerof his right hand. The world knows nothing of Herman but owesits life to his health and vision. His health saw him through thecamps, and his vision helped kill the snake of death in JosephStalin’s pocket before he could loose it.

That year, the man who would use Herman’s knowledge tokill the snake was born in Braunau, Upper Silesia. Adolph Hitleralso started well that year and began growing in a home with hisrespected father and beloved mother. The trails bringing the twomen together didn’t close for many years, but thank God theyfinally did.

At the same time, one cell of the snake was born on board theSS Moon carrying Jewish immigrants from Europe to New York.His name was Alex Boda, a family name adopted by hisgrandfather to avoid identification as a Jew. Alex’s parents werecoming from Prague where the family had prospered but hadsuffered the usual indecencies heaped on Jews in Central Europe.

As Boda’s ship moved west, a French scientist in Parisclosed the curtains on his laboratory windows and turned downthe lights. Henri Becquerel then placed a photographic plateupright in a clamp. Next, he placed a cardboard shield in front ofthe plate. Finally, he moved a container of pitchblende to aposition in front of the cardboard. After five minutes, he movedthe pitchblende away and removed the cardboard panel. Sure

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enough, he was right. The plate had been blackened by somethingcoming from the uranium salts imbedded in the pitchblende.Radioactivity had been discovered, and its power wouldultimately be borne by Alex Boda to a short, ugly, deformedRussian monster with very red hands.

Also in Becquerel’s Paris, delegates from all over Europemet to adopt a platform for complete revision of the political lifeof the continent. They proclaimed goals including a fair divisionof wealth, and an end to economic cycles, opposition tonationalism, state ownership of production and the end ofcapitalism. Their clique would eventually become the SocialistInternational.

In New York that same year the Jewish Forward newspaperwas founded and urged on its masthead “Workers of the WorldUnite”.

In Gori, Georgia, Ioseph Dzhugashvili was a ten year old boyalready smarting over his crooked arm, his short stature and hiswebbed toes. But later, as Joseph Stalin, he would overcome thesedeficiencies and show people a thing or two.

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1905 - Spears in St. Petersburg

1905 crept into spring, and Herman Klost had alreadyforgotten winter, as he did every year at this time. In fact twostretches of hot weather had his spirits drooping. He hated heateven worse than cold. But today a cool snap turned the world intoa paradise, combining bracing temperature with newly openedflowers, both wild and carefully cultivated.

Klost was only 16 but wise for his years, and he already hadworries of mortality. These always came in the midst of someflavor of joy. He disliked the thought of dying and never repeatingthe sensation. This edge of sorrow colored his day, but onlyslightly.

Klost’s small group from the common school in Saratov hadtaken the train through Moscow to St. Petersburg for a tour ofmuseums. It was a reward for excellent schoolwork and wasaffordable for only three students in his class.

After a night sleeping in the depot, the boys and their teacherwalked from Vitebsk Station up Liteyny Prospekt to the NevaRiver. The trip was interrupted by visits to numerous smallmuseums which Professor Goel knew. The students, all VolgaGermans and very intent, were entranced. The flowers, the breeze,the art, the lovely Petersburg girls were the perfect recipe forathletic young Germans in the big city for the first time.

Because they were on short rations, they ate nothing forbreakfast and were especially hungry when they reached the river.By a happy accident, they found a German cafe partially filledwith seamen from Hamburg. Much wurst and kraut disappeared,and the professor even allowed the boys a beer, raising spirits.

Side trips during the afternoon culminated in a return to thecafe and another meal. It was then that a slim, worried-lookingman in his twenties came in and took a table which had beenempty all day and which was obviously reserved. The man wasaccompanied by three others of about the same age. By the use ofgoatees and clothing they all appeared to be trying to look older.They also showed some nervousness, but this disappeared after

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drinks.The table, in a corner, was immediately beside that of Klost

and friends. A cork board was on the solid wall beside the table,and the other wall held a window facing Voinova Street. Once thegroup was seated, Klost noticed that the cork board held a map ofPetersburg. Although there were no pins or marks on the map, itwas quite soiled from the repeated running of fingers over itssurface. Pointing began in earnest immediately after the group hadbeen seated, often with one man’s arm and finger extendedbackwards while his head leaned into the middle of the table tomake some argument.

The men obviously felt safe in speaking openly. After all,this was a cafe full of Germans, and these men were speakingGeorgian. But Klost and his companions understood themperfectly. They studied Georgian intensely in Saratov.

After an hour of relaxation, it was Herman Klost who beganto look nervous. The men at the next table spoke of the mostdisturbing things. Klost, concluding they were somewhatunbalanced, worried about possible violence. They spoke likeleaders of some big political party or army, even though theylooked quite ordinary, and it sounded as if they were planning thecapture of the city and even some sort of wider revolution.

Klost’s physical strength and the presence of his comradesfinally convinced him he was in no real danger, so his outgoingpersonality took over.

“Gentlemen”, he said in Georgian, “I am Herman Klost fromSaratov, and I wonder if I may join your army.”

After a moment of surprise, the men laughed and asked ifKlost and his friends were serious.

“You boys may ride in our cart if you wish, but you maynever see your wedding bed.” said the leader. “We will own thisbeautiful city by sunset tomorrow. And much more shortly.”

Klost asked “Are you serious? Don’t you fear the Czar?Aren’t you a rather small regiment?”

The leader smiled and said “The Czar is slow and stupid. Amonth ago we would not have talked so openly, but now we couldput our plans out in handbills with no fear. It is too late to stopus.”

“May I ask your name, sir? I will say someday `I know the

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man who owns St. Petersburg.”“Lev Bronstein, my boy”One of the man’s companions touched his elbow, laughed,

and said to the boys “He is a joker, son. This is Leon Trotsky. Hejust likes to use Jewish names to shock.”

Trotsky looked as if he had just remembered his name andgrinned. “Ah, yes. I am indeed Trotsky.”

After more drink, Trotsky told the boys of his Jewishancestry and of taking the name of a prison-master, Leon Trotsky,so as to escape Siberia under a forged passport. This revelationwas followed by much political banter, in which Trotsky preachedthe most frightening philosophy.

The men at his table really did intend to seize the city and toestablish what they called a “Soviet”. But the claiming of a singleport city, however renowned, was small potatoes. They planned tocarry out the dreams of a man called Marx, about whom Klost hadread only a little. The ultimate goal was control of all Europeunder something called the “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

What frightened Klost and company was the ruthlessnesswith which Trotsky and company talked of plans for the future.

“You see the pig-faced owner of this place?” asked Trotsky.“He peels money from sailors and from us. He hires and firesthese lovely waitresses on a whim, maybe for sexual reasons. Hegoes to his home at night and rests in luxury while you boys sleepin the train station. In Marx’s new world this man will end upagainst a wall. The people will own this place and decide onprices, decide on hiring and pay. Things will be fair.”

Klost asked “Who is this `people’ you speak of? A Czar?”“The Czar won’t make such decisions, boy. He can’t decide

anything from below the flowers. He and the pig owners of ournation will pass to their reward, and quickly. The same will betrue in this pig’s homeland, Germany. Especially Germany. Ourparty will bury little hogs like this and big hogs making iron in theRuhr.”

“Who in your world serves the beer and cooks the sausage?”“This will be decided by the proletariat, the workers

themselves. You should join us, like them.” Trotsky waved towardthe window where about 20 men had collected among trees acrossthe street.

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One of Trotsky’s colleagues pulled away from the table andjoined the group outside, gesturing and pointing vigorously.

As the other men prepared to leave, Klost asked one morequestion. “The killing, you joke surely.”

“No joke, boy. A man will help you build your system only ifhe sees his lazy neighbor hanging from a tree. You should simplysee you’re on the right side. Goodbye.”

* * * * *Klost and his mates spent the night in the Finland Station.

The next morning they visited the Summer Palace before going tomarvel at the Hermitage. Just as the boys began pondering lunchagain, Professor Goel called them to a window overlookingNevsky Prospekt. There, moving slowly across the Moika Canalbridge, was a mass of people carrying poles topped by religiousicons. As the crowd drew near, Klost heard singing, saw blades onthe ends of the poles and was sure he saw Trotsky near the edge ofthe front rank.

“They weren’t joking! There must be thousands of them. Ifthe killing starts now, we’re dead. Let’s get to the Neva.”

As Klost and his friends moved to the west portico of thebuilding they passed hundreds of unconcerned museum-goers. Butof course none of them had eaten with Trotsky the night before.Professor Goel told the boys to keep quiet about their fears. Nosense in picking sides too early.

As they hurried down the steps, another sound came from thedirection of the Admiralty. Hooves on stone. Suddenly a largegroup of brightly dressed men on horseback moved onto Nevskytoward the singing crowd. Cossacks, thank God.

As they charged into the crowd, they used the bodies of theirhorses to flatten some marchers and used their swords on others.The boys had never seen human blood in such amounts. Some ofthe Cossacks’ horses slipped on the slick redness, but the passageof a half hour was enough to show the crowd clearly beaten downto nothing. As the riders moved back toward the Admiralty, cartswere already loading the injured.

Klost didn’t know how he felt. At one moment he knew hewould die at the hands of the Marxists. The next, he felt sorrowfor those same people. In any event, he felt something ugly andbig was moving in Russia. Would it prevail? Would Klost be the

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lazy neighbor in the tree?The train back to Saratov was a movement to safety, back

with good Germans who were surely smart enough not to getcaught up in such doings, even though they were an island in astrange land. Stranger all the time.

* * * * * Adolph was as bored as usual in class until the teacher

turned to last night’s reading assignment on Karl Marx. Here wasa true madman, in Adolph’s eyes, but one who seemed to have ahold on certain minds. Marx’s followers were not particularlyloud but were said to be fanatical.

Marx’s poetry spoke with deep pessimism of the humancondition saying “We are chained, shattered, empty, frightened;eternally chained to this marble block of being.” He said“Everything that exits deserves to perish.” He carried thisgloominess into his predictions for the future, where he foresaw aDay of Judgement full of “burning cities...seen in theheavens...while the guillotine beats time.”

The class also studied the speeches of Marx and wasespecially shocked at his 1856 address at a banquet celebrating thenew People’s Paper in London. Marx clearly foretold theextinction of European society when he said:

“There existed in the Middle Ages in Germany a secrettribunal called Vehmgericht. If a red cross was seen marked on ahouse, people knew that its owner was doomed by the Vehm. Allthe houses of Europe are now marked with the mysterious redcross. History is the judge - its executioner, the proletarian.”

Adolph could abide this kind of darkness in some inert foolwallowing in his own narrow world. But Marx was having somekind of effect, and his policies for government were beingpreached. Adolph’s class was unanimous in hooting down Marx’sclaim that the German/Austrian world held contradictions whichwould produce a “universal crisis” resulting in the elimination ofprivate property. A world with no property? Why strive andstudy? It was absurd.

Adolph was especially puzzled over the contradictionbetween the Jewish Marx’s gloom and the bright promises of hisTorah where God promises plenty for the obedient. And howcould a good Jew, the son of a rabbi, promise such destruction

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when his holy book promises that if he harkens not to God he“shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.”

But on the day the boys in class were rejecting the soundnessof Marxism, Trotsky’s army of pointed sticks were moving downNevsky Prospekt to meet the Cossacks under the banner of thisman Marx. This army would fall in the hundreds that day, butwould not disappear.

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1908 - Ore

Vladimir Vernadskii’s mind was able to run on several tracksat once. The brilliant Russian mineralogist stood at the lecturn andspoke to the Academy of Sciences of the future brightness of lifeas a result of the energy of the atom.

“The phenomena of radioactivity opens new sources ofatomic energy. This energy exceeds manyfold the energy we haveheretofore imagined. But we must have the raw material toproduce this power. We must find and extract large supplies ofradium, and we can’t depend for that on the good graces oftoday’s ally who could become tommorrow’s enemy. If we canfind, chart and exploit radium in Russia we will possess might andpower incomparably greater than that of those who only own gold,land or capital.”

While Vernadskii painted this rosy picture, the second trackof his mind lamented the fact that no such source of radioactivematerial was in hand. Germany and others were working dailywith this valuable material, while Russia only longed for it.Russian scientists studied at the feet of the world’s greatestphysicists in Berlin, London and Cambridge but came home to anempty cupboard.

* * * * *However, Vernadskii needn’t have worried. While he was

speaking, a white frocked woman far away in the Fergana Valleyof Central Asia asked her associate if he could identify thebrownish-black dirt in a container.

“We isolated this from some copper ores we were assaying inbuilding one. I have an idea, but I need confirmation. Take aguess.”

The man placed the container under a light and added aliquid to the material.

“Let’s send it to Petersburg. You’ve found our firstpitchblende, my dear. Is it enough to mine?”

“With enough money, yes.”“We’ll get the money for this.” he said.