Iordan Terziev (aka Yardon Atanasov) was a Bulgarian politician, born in 1900. He was in the Communist Party of Bulgaria from 1922-1926, and later in the Communist Party of Argentina. He emigrated to the USSR in 1930, and attended the Institute of Red Professors until 1936. Then, apparently being sent - along with Ivan Piperkov and Piotr Stanev - by Yezhov personally, he was professor in the Agrarian Institute in Ashkabad, Turkmenistan. On February 6, 1938, he was arrested, and repeatedly urged to confess during his interrogation, until his case was closed and he was released on April 25, 1939.
This is his testimony of what happened to him, in a letter to the leader of the Comintern of the Bulgarian Communist Party.
What you are about to read is, in my opinion, one of the most horrifying accounts of NKVD interrogation during the Great Purge. That said, here is the letter:
Letter from I. Terziev to Dimitrov and Kolarov describing his arrest and the methods of investigation.
To the leader of the Comintern and the Bulgarian Communist Party
-- Georgy Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov.
From Terziev, I. T. (Yanko Atanasov).
Dear comrades,
On 6 February 1938, I was arrested for no reason by NKVD organs and, after spending 15 months in the Ashkhabad prison, was released on 25 April 1939. After my release, I learned that almost all of the Bulgarian émigrés had been arrested and were still held in prisons and camps. I do not know whether you are aware of all the reasons that led the [Bulgarian] émigrés to this tragic situation, therefore I will tell you everything that happened to me. Because, even if it is not typical for all the arrested émigrés, it is typical for the comrades whom I got to know during the investigation: those comrades who are still [being held] in prisons and camps.
In Ashkhabad (Turkmenia), I worked along with Ivan Piperkov and Piotr Stanev. We were instructors in the CC of the Communist Party of Turkmenia, sent personally by Ezhov. Georgy Tsanev worked as a woodworker, and I [worked] as a head of section of the social sciences in an institute. I was sent there in accordance with a directive of the CC VKP(b), which was signed personally by A. A. Andreev.
Our party papers and travel documents indicated that we were important party members. However, in early November 1937, Iv. Piperkov and Georgy Tsanov were arrested. 20 days later, Piotr Stanev was also arrested. Immediately after their arrest, I wrote to the section, via c. Anton Ivanov, describing everything that had happened and, a month after their arrest, I went to the Turkmenian NKVD to inquire about the reasons for arresting the comrades in question. I was received by an investigator named Erastenko, to whom I described all the activities of the comrades in Bulgaria and expressed my opinion that the NKVD made a mistake by arresting them. In addition, I presented written references for the comrades with whom I worked in Bulgaria, and declared that I was only fulfilling my party duty and wanted to assist the organs in clarifying the question of Bulgarians in Turkmenia. Erastenko told me that I was vouching for them in vain, since they had already confessed of espionage…
Soon after that, I was also arrested and sent to the Ashkhabad prison. There I met many party activists, soldiers, doctors, etc. When I said that I was Bulgarian, those arrested told me: “You, com. Terziev, will be a Bulgarian spy, and, if you want to save your skin, [you have to] recruit as many accessories as you can and confess immediately. Otherwise, you are dead.” The slogan “recruit as many as you can” was promoted by the Turkmenian Trotskyists, in particular by the old Trotskyist Rubinstein, a member of the CC of the party, and the director of a chemical plant in Kara-Bugas, Tol. Around this slogan, a sharp ideological struggle went on between the Trotskyists and the loyal party members. Using this slogan, the Trotskyists managed to deliver a heavy blow both to the party and the NKVD, since many of the arrested gave in to this provocation, and especially to the prosecutors. As a result of this provocation, one arrested [person] dragged down with him dozens of innocent and honest party members and non-party Bolsheviks. I simply can not describe this issue more specifically, but I urge you to pay special attention to it, because the roots of the problem are in Moscow -- this slogan was implemented in an organized manner everywhere.
My case was investigated by Lieutenant Kovalevsky. On 9 February, he called me in for interrogation. His first question was, “By whom, when and how were you recruited [to work] for foreign intelligence?” Then he continued: “The prosecution possesses reliable information that you are the IKR spy. Confess by yourself, because voluntary confession will lighten your penalty. Your fate was sealed before your arrest, and keep in mind that, if you do not confess, you will be shot.” I told him that I had no idea about this work. He then made me sit on a “stool,” on which it was absolutely impossible to sit. I spent three days, without being able to move, on this stool; my limbs swelled, I felt particularly strong, dull pains in my legs. Along with the physical suffering, I was insulted with refined obscenities. Not only was my honor as a communist and a man outraged, but also the honor of my deceased parents. On 13. II-39, they started beating me. I was beaten by the investigator Kovalevsky and his assistant who, in addition to regular beatings, struck me several times in the back of my head. I do not remember what they did to me afterwards, but when I recovered, I felt a strong pain in the eyes. As a result of the shock, my eyes hemorraged. At present, the treatment can only localize the disease, but, as doctors told me, I will never regain normal sight.
After these physical and moral treatments, and after a long “rest,” the investigator again summoned me to an interrogation and subjected me to new tortures. [I] was standing on my knees with hands raised up, while the investigator opened a book and read a number of Bulgarian names, of which I remember Grancharov, Dr. Maksimov, Novakov, Nikolov, etc. He characterized them as Trotskyists and asked if I knew them. I answered that I knew them as loyal communists. After that I was beaten again.
It is hard to describe what I lived through in those days, but I felt that I was fading away, that I would die in a NKVD dungeon. A person commits suicide only under extreme psychological conditions, which I reached twice. However, the investigators must have been watching my feelings and intentions. They used to guard me particularly closely, so I could not approach the window or the stairs. I decided to break my head against the wall, but when I started doing it, I was caught by two investigators. They must have been frightened by my terrible act and started to calm me down saying that I should not torment myself, that there was a way out, I only had to agree to write something. I objected saying indicating that I could not invent crimes and attribute them to myself because that would mean misleading the party and the government and thus actually help the enemies. Kovalevsky told me several times: “Regarding the truthfulness of the testimony, we warn only the witnesses. But you have to provide the testimony of a spy, remember that.”
I could not stand on my knees anymore, and I asked [them] to give me some rest, after which I would testify. With a bloody head and tormented body, I was returned to the prison [cell] for a rest. After several hours, I was again taken for interrogation. I decided to ruin myself, but not to permit additional victims, and, if I could not hold this line, to mention comrades who were not in the Soviet Union or who had already been arrested.
I started to write a confession that I was an agent of French intelligence, but my investigator, after having read it, told me that it was no good, that I had to write something more intelligent if I wanted to avoid tortures.
They made me stand on my knees again, however this time, they put six-sided pencils under my knees. One can only stand [the pain] for a maximum of 4-5 hours, after which he passes out. After this procedure, the following day I became a German spy. My confession, in short, consisted of the following:
I supposedly had met, through one comrade, a woman who, in turn, led me to a worker in the German embassy, to whom: 1) I provided information about the political émigrés [and] the moods among them, about who was coming to the USSR and who was going back; 2) On his orders, following special plans, I prepared to sabotage factories in case of a war. In this confession, I included, as the members of the espionage group, Dustabanov, Kiskinov and Iv. Sterev. In late February, I signed the final examination record. However, the next day, during the night I was brought [back] to my investigator and the head of the NKVD’s III department, [a man] named Bolshakov, who started to swear at me and said: “We will liquidate all of you political émigrés.” He was dissatisfied with my confession because I recruited too few people. He ordered the physical tortures to continue. Then I declared to him that being a foreigner, I can give valuable testimony, but for several reasons, could only do so before the Narkom, and they, in the interests of investigation, would have to let me see him. He agreed.
Three or four days after this conversation, in early March, I was called for questioning. My investigator repeated again a series of physical tortures, this time in a more disgusting form. I could not stand it, and started to write new confession, this time as an agent of Bulgarian counterintelligence. I decided to involve in the espionage organization people who had been compromised in the movement, or those representing no special interest [to the movement]. My confession can be reduced to the following: 1) That in 1925, Dustabanov accidentally introduced me to P. Topalov, to whom I expressed my disillusionment with the revolution. Topalov promised me rehabilitation by the Bulgarian government if I agreed to provide information about the émigrés. 2) [That] Topalov and I supposedly named those émigrés who returned to Bulgaria and who later were shot by the Bulgarian government. 3) That we engaged in provocation in Constantinopole throughout the whole period. 4) That, through Todor Lukanov and Georgy Popov, we conducted sabotage activities in the Narkomvneshtorg and in Tsentrosoiuz. 5) That Topalov and I stole some central archive [Tsentro-Arkhiv] documents that compromised a number of bourgeois parties in Bulgaria.
I signed this confession on 21. III-38. In early April 1938, I was again interrogated and made sign a new examination record which included, besides those first records, the following paragraphs:
1) That I was supposedly connected with the Popov-Tanev group, and that I rehabilitated them in the émigré circles, and that we supposedly carried on a struggle against c.c. G. Dimitrov and V. Kolarov.
2) That Topalov supposedly told me that the Plenipotentiary Minister in Moscow, Antonov, was connected with the German counterintelligence.
Having signed this confession, I waited every night for 5 months for them to shoot me.
I retracted my confession on 20 September 1938 and again on 19 October. The last time, my retraction was documented, and the “conditions” under which this confession was given were noted. I repeated this retraction in front of other investigators.
5 more months passed, and only on 1 April was I summoned for questioning by my first investigator, Kovalevsky. He composed a detailed examination record, refuting the records of 21. III and 5. IV-38. After that I was called 3 times to the military procurator who questioned me in detail about the methods of investigation, and what I knew about the escape from “St. Anastasia.” I answered that c. G. Dimitrov characterized this escape as a CPB affair. On 25. IV-38, I was summoned to a Commission where they asked me who in the Comintern knew me. After that, they told me that I was free and could appeal to the Comintern or CC VKP(b).
As to the other Ashkhabad comrades, I learned that Georgy Tsanev confessed to being a member of some terrorist group which sought to murder c. G. Dimitrov. He was sentenced to 8 years and exiled.
In October 1938, Professor Dziakovsky from the Med[ical] Institute was transferred to my cell. He told me that Ivan Piperkov had been subjected to terrible beating. He confessed to being agent provocateur. After he recovered, he was transferred from a common cell to solitary confinement.
On 1 April 1939, during the interrogation, investigator Kovalevsky let me read one page from Iv. Piperkov’s testimony. It said that, in Odessa in 1926, Iv. Piperkov had organized a counterrevolutionary group consisting of Iv. Piperkov, Boyan Atanasov, Vasili Ivanov, Yakim Ivanov, Terziev, V. Novakov, Stoenchev, K. Nikolov, Stareishinsky, Dr. Maksimov and a number of other comrades. I thoroughly refuted that statement in order to rehabilitate comrades. Judging from the investigator’s behavior, I understood that Piperkov was alive.
I could not learn anything specific about Peter Stanev. In prison they said that he he had been shot.
I have described to you, very objectively, the procedures and methods of the investigation of my case. I declare before you that I have never been a member of any oppositional groups, never shared anti-party views, but in spite of this, they attempted to turn me into the enemy of the party and a fascist hero.
The opinion of some comrades who think that the NKVD does not arrest those non-guilty is wrong. In prisons, I met many innocent comrades.
Besides the Boikovtsevs, Zlatorovtsevs and some other types, Bulgarian p[olitical] emigres, and the p[olitical] emigres in the USSR in general, are the victims of a planned and broad provocation undertaken by Trotskyists and [agents of] foreign counterintelligence in the NKVD apparatus. It would be interesting to know about the role played here by the Bulgarian Trotskyists and sectarians, many of whom worked for the NKVD officially or non-officially.
These arrests had as a goal the political degeneration of the émigrés, the compromising of the CC VKP(b) and c. Stalin personally, [as well as of] the Comintern and c. Dimitrov personally. Many of the arrested shared the opinion that everything that was going on in the country was sanctioned by c. c. Stalin and Dimitrov.
In addition, there was created in the party a certain psychosis against foreigners. The word “vigilance” was substituted for “mistrust,” which has nothing to do with the revolutionary vigilance. As a result of this psychosis and the false denunciations, many political émigrés were imprisoned.
Bulgarian political émigrés were educated ideologically in Bulgaria under your direct guidance. Under your guidance, these émigrés offered examples of selflessness and heroism. [Events in] Spain have once again verified the remarkable qualities of Bulgarian communists.
Ideologically, our emigres have never been with the Boikovtsy and Iskrovtsy, except for a few petty-bourgeois types and comrades who incidentally lost their way. The Bulgarian political emigration has a great respect for the party’s past and for its founders.
You have to do everything possible to save the people, because without your active involvement in this question, the émigrés will not be freed and will vanish in the camps. The cadres, which you have been creating for decades, will vanish.
Nalchik,
5. VIII – 1939.
With fraternal greetings,
P. Terziev (Ya. Atanasov).
(Enemies within the Gates? The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939 by William J. Chase, Document 65)
Unfortunately, Terziev's experience is not the only one of torture during the Great Purge, as there is clear evidence of extensive torture by the NKVD.