'Red Orchestra' which failed to play Stalin's tun

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Books and pamphlets that you should read Leopold Trepper was a leading spy for the USSR who ended up convinced that 'socialism will triumph, and it will not have the colour of the Russian tanks that crushed Prague' He described his life in his memoirs, 'The Great Game' (Sphere, £1.50). Brian Lucas "I was never a Trotskyist, but the Trotskyists who were accused in the trials were of an exceptional courage... Why was this? It is possible to understand: because of all the factions within the party, only the Trotskyist faction (one may or may not agree) understood much more deeply what had happened to the October revolution, its degeneration, "At the time when Trotsky analysed what was happening in the USSR, many militants did not believe in it. But later, it is not necessary to be a Trotskyist to understand that it is so, that it has developed as he foresaw. It is enough to live for a couple of years in a socialist country, not as a delegate from a fraternal party (in that case, one can know nothing) but to live one, two or three years in any one of these countries. And... there is such a (bureaucratic) caste. One can call it caste, class as you wish ... It is not a class, that is my opinion."

ON Wednesday January 24, Radio 4's nine o'clock news announced "Leopold Trepper, the leader of the wartime spy ring the Red Orchestra was buried in Israel today."

This brief statement recorded the final act in one of the most intriguing, interesting and full lives this century has yet known.

Trepper was a Jew and a Communist. It was these two factors that shaped Trepper's long and eventful life.

He was born on February 23, 1904, in Novy-Targ, Poland.

After World War I a rise in nationalistic sentiment fostered a dramatic rise in anti-semitism. This had two effects on the young Trepper. It forced his family to move in search of employment, and it resulted in him joining the left-wing Jewish youth movement "Hashomer Hatzair"

He quickly established himself within the movement. He took part in activities including the general strike of 1923 in Cracow and as a result was forced to move from Poland' to Palestine.

Already disillusioned with Judaism, he quickly became disenchanted with the Kibutzim. In 1924 he joined the growing Palestine Communist Party, where he worked for the unity of the working class, both Arabs and Jews.

To the disbelief of the Zionist léader Ben Gurion, the CP scored some success.

For Trepper the price for this moderate success was to be hounded, twice imprisoned, and eventually forced to leave the country by the English authorities.

In 1929 he arrived in Paris where he married another Jewish Communist. He worked for the Party in France for three years before he again had to leave the country.

The home of the socialist revolution was his next stop. But on arriving in Moscow he was surprised and shocked to see thousands of peasants crowded into railway stations, being transported to other parts of the country, warnings about thieves and a thriving black market.

He was assigned to Marchlevski, the university for national minorities. Among his lecturers were four broken old men whose names belied their appearances: Radek, Zinoviev, Bukharin and Kamenev.

In the following years Trepper witnessed the total reports.

destruction of any internal opposition to the Stalin regime, the annihilation of the leaderships of the Communist Parties throughout the, world, the decapitation of the Red Army and the rule of fear with which the NKVD controlled the Soviet In his memoirs, "The Great Game" he gives a harrowing account of the fear under which the CP leaders of foreign coun tries who were studying in Moscow lived.

"And yet" ; he writes, "we went along, sick at heart but passive, caught up in machinery we had set in motion with our own hands, mere cogs in the apparatus, terrorised to the point of madness, we became the instrument of our own subjugation ... But who did protest at the time? Who rose up to show his outrage? The Trotskyites can lay claim to this honour.

"Following the example of their leader ... they fought Stalinism to the death, and they were the only ones who did. By the time of the great purges, they could only shout their rebellion in the freezing waste lands where they had been dragged in order to be exterminated. in the camps, their conduct was admirable. But their voices were lost in the tundra.

"Today the Trotskyists have a right to accuse those who once howled along with the wolves. Let them not forget, however, that they had the enormous advantage over us of having a coherent political system capable of replacing Stalinism. They had something to cling to in the midst of their profound distress at seeing the revolution betrayed. They did not 'confess' for they knew that their confession would serve neither the party nor socialism."

Refused

Trepper himself was never a Trotskyist. Disillusioned by seeing many friends, comrades and leaders swallowed up by the Stalinist machine it would have been understandable for him to leave politics and go to live out of the reach of the NKVD. But one major driving force kept him going, his belief in the inevitability of war against Nazi Germany.

He met General Berzin, head of the espionage service, who also thought that war was inevitable, contrary to Stalin's pronouncements on the subject. They decided to set up a network in Belgium, France and Germany of agents who would not start to work until the outbreak of war.

Alter Trepper was assigned to Belgium, Berzin was shot for what the Stalinist regime was." the date for the invasion by Trepper and Schulze-Boysen.

During the years 1940-43 the Orchestra sent 1,500 dispatches. There were some astounding successes. They managed to get the plans for Germany's super tank, the Tiger M6 to the USSR in time for the Soviet Union to produce their KV version which was superior in every aspect, and they did the same with the Messerschmitt fast plane. They also had a representative at every meeting of the German Chief of Staffthe stenographer!

The Germans set up a force (Sonderkommando) whose sole purpose was to stop the Orchestra. This they managed to do, thanks to the carelessness and mistakes made by the director of the spy centre in (Information Ouvrieres, 9 July, 1974)

Eventually the whole of the Orchestra was arrested. The vast majority refused to say anything even under the most horrendous torture.

Many died under torture, some managed to commit suicide and others were executed.

Trepper was one of the very few who survived. The German High Command wanted to keep the network going to pursue the policy of a separate peace.

Trepper played along with their game long enough to secretly tell Moscow what was going on, then he escaped and remained at large until the end of hostilities.

He was flown back to Moscow early in 1945, expecting to be welcomed as a hero. Also on his flight was Shliapnikov, one time leader of the Workers'

Opposition, who promised a hero's welcome by Molotov.

Instead of medals they both received a prison cell at Lubianka. And Trepper spent the next ten years at Lubianka and Lefortovo.

His crime? Being assigned by the "traitor" General Berzin in 1938! He was not an isolated case. In prison he met thousands who similarly had committed no crime.

After the death of Stalin Trepper was released, free to go and join his wife and two sons. He had not seen them for 16 years, and they had been told he was dead.

Eventually he was allowed to go to Poland, where he became the head of Jewish and cultural affairs. He stayed there until 1967, when the Polish Party under Gomulka began its purge on Jews.

He applied to leave Poland to go to Israel, but it took four years, an international campaign and a threatened hunger strike for the Polish authorities to let him go.

When Trepper died at the age of 77 he was beaten but unbowed. He remained a Jewish communist: "I know that youth will succeed," he wrote, 'where we have failed, that socialism will triumph and that it will not have the colour of the Russian tanks that crushed Prague."

'At night in our university," he records, "where militants from all countries were living, we used to stay awake until 3 am. At exactly that hour, headlights would pierce the darkness and sweep over the facades of the buildings.

" They're here! They're here!' When we heard that cry, a wave of anxiety would run through the dormitories. Standing at the windows, stomachs knotted with insane terror, we would watch for the cars of the NKVD to stop.

"It's not for us, they're going to the other end of the building'. Relieved for the night in this cowardly way, we could sink into our restless sleep."

"Fear which had become our second skin, induced caution, guided us towards submission. I knew that my friends had been arrested and I said nothing. Why them? Why not me? I waited for my turn and prepared myself forthis end."

"One day in the spring of 1937 Bela Kun [the Hungarian CP leader] arrived at a meeting of the Executive of the Comintern ... Manuilski announced that according to documents furnished by the NKVD, Bela Kun had been a Rumanian spy since 1929.

'Noone protested or even asked for further information ..: outside the building a car was waiting for Bela Kun, who was never seen again."