The initiators of the experiment already knew very well not only the
structure of the Romanian soul but also how the particular youths selected for
experimentation had been educated in school, at home, and especially in the
organization to which they were ideologically devoted before their arrest.
Their complete breakdown could therefore be accomplished only by
systematically destroying everything that constituted the firm anchorage of
their lives and thoughts; in other words, by cutting them loose from their
moorings. And because Christianity, the diametrical opposite to materialism,
has always offered the most effective system for living, and because the
majority of students arrested were condemned for activity inspired by the Legion
of St. Michael the Archangel, the approach of the "re-educators" was
to attack precisely those values on which the Christian ethic is based. By
destroying these, they could destroy the very reason the youths chose to go to
prison rather than compromise their principles.
Investigations conducted in the Ministry of the Interior and in various
regional Securitates, managed to wrest quite a few secrets from the students,
not so much because of moral weakness as by means of brutal methods of
interrogation. These were such that it was almost impossible for a student to
deny an offense even if he had committed none; he admitted the crime to avoid
further torture. But even though the Securitate did succeed in tearing secrets
from tortured minds, it was unable to affect the structure of the soul. On the
contrary, having passed through these investigations, the students came out
more convinced than ever of the righteousness of the cause for which they were
suffering, and of the absurdity of the newly imposed system. As long, then, as
the soul remained unaltered, there had been no defeat. So it was precisely the
soul that remained the principal target, its utter destruction, the aim.
The Romanian people and their faith appeared in history at no determined
date, but the Romanian soul is organically commingled with Christianity,
perhaps because they were born together, as witness Romania's historical
chronicles over several centuries and all the crosses, called troite set
up at nearly all crossroads in the countryside. Since the Romanian has
traditionally put all his hopes in God when trials confronted him, the
peasants' sons, now students, turned to God for help in the most trying time of
their lives. A prayer murmured from the depths of one's soul by trembling lips
was often more satisfying than bread. Though it is often said that faith is
inversely proportional to the degree of education, exactly the opposite was
found in Romania's prisons. Those whose belief was strongest, who felt the
greatest need to pray, were definitely the best educated, irrespective of their
political affiliation, including even the most materialistic socialists, who
discovered the closeness of God, in prison, where only true faith could fill
the void of their lives.
The Communists recognized this fact and decided to strike from the beginning
with all fury, aiming to produce despair and despondency until this faith was
destroyed. Thus could they render ineffective the twin pillars of Romanian
patriotism: Christian moral precepts, and tradition.
Everything of the past which could offer any kind of refuge was to be
muddied and denigrated. This included the heroes of history and the folklore of
Christian inspiration. Then, to be given special attention, was the destruction
of love for family, in order completely to isolate the victim in his own
misery, bereft of religion, love of country, and family. This would break the
chain that links together a community of national thought and gives meaning to
a national struggle. When the individual was thus cut off from his history,
faith and family, the ultimate step in "re-educating" him was to
destroy his existence as a personality -- an individual. This, to the victim,
was to prove the most painful step of all and was called his "unmasking.
"
These, then, were the main objectives of the experiment launched at Pitesti
Prison by which the "re-educators" hoped to produce in the end
"the new man," de-personalized, a robot which they could manipulate.
The preparations necessary for initiating the last cruel step, the
"unmasking," were probably patterned after methods explained in a
book by a Russian lawyer who, arrested and tortured after confessing
everything, wrote it for the benefit of his interrogators. It is rumored that
this happened during the first investigations carried out by the Communist
police after the capture of Russia. In the book, the author used himself as an
example, searching his own soul, and succeeded in placing at the disposal of
his torturers a psychological treatise of overwhelming importance. Analyzing
himself, he discovered the weak points in man, the most vulnerable ones,
through which an ultimate breakdown can be achieved.
The weaknesses, or "cracks" as he calls them in his book, are
hunger, psychological terror, endless uncertainty, and total isolation. Months
of undernourishment, therefore, which our student prisoners had already
endured, laid the groundwork quite well for what was to follow.
There you have the prerequisites for applying the "unmasking"
technique. Practically speaking, it consisted of two distinct phases, the outer
and the inner unmasking. The first was but an intensification of Communist
Securitate's usual investigative methods involving not only some torture but
much that was grotesque and irrational. But the second, the "inner
unmasking," which was to result in the final breakdown, was the one that
received the greatest attention from the experts.
The first phase carried to completion the secret police's earlier
investigations through a torturing system whereby they sought to squeeze a man
into the position of declaring all, but absolutely all, that he had done
or intended to do prior to his arrest. He had to name and denounce all persons
he had been in contact with, all who helped him with money or food, advice or
moral encouragement; all who had sheltered him; all who knew of his activities
even if they did not participate in them; all who did not sympathize with the
Communist regime; all whom he suspected of having infiltrated the Party or
having joined it opportunistically; anybody who seemed likely later to engage
in anti-Party activity; maligners of the Party; etc. Then he had to tell
whether he had any ideological material -- books, documents, newspapers,
circulars, etc. -- which he had not declared during earlier questioning; where
they were hidden; who else knew of their existence; whether he possessed
firearms; if so, where hidden. Particular emphasis was placed on firearms,
especially those stored away by peasants as the German troops retreated in
1944; and on any individuals of the "people's army" who might later,
through bribery or corruption, place at the disposal of the "enemies of
the people" weapons or anything else that could be used against the Party.
The oral declarations were first demanded from the victims, were then
inscribed on soap plaques, verified and attested by a member of the
"re-education committee" (or by Turcanu himself, if the case seemed a
bit interesting), and were finally put on paper, signed by the declarant, and
sent to special officers of the Ministry of the Interior, who proceeded, as
soon as possible after screening the information, to arrest the persons
"denounced" in the declaration. Also as part of this outer unmasking,
the student, if he had been transferred from another prison, had to detail his
activities there as well as give a detailed account of his activities after
arriving at Pitesti.
During the first months of their imprisonment, before Turcanu began his
work, students had been allowed a modicum of freedom, being supervised more or
less superficially by the guards, and had organized their free time for their
own benefit. Not having books or writing materials, not even pencil and paper
(it was dangerous to be found possessing these), students discovered anew the
Roman stylus, using soap tablets instead of wax ones. It was on these little
tablets that all writing was done. In the absence of books, courses in foreign
languages were pursued, also in advanced mathematics, chemistry and other
subjects as remembered from student days. Discussions proved to be quite
fruitful, especially among those who had studied philosophy, literature, law,
and theology, many aspects of Romania's spiritual life as well as problems of
sociology and philosophical orientation. All this was condoned by the
Communists, who considered it a matter of adjusting to life inside a prison;
but if they detected, under cover of these educational sessions, any sort of
political activity, the punishment was more severe than for similar activity
outside.
Nevertheless, there was no lack of discussion of a purely political
character among students of different convictions. Through these talks they
came to know one another better and were able to clear up disagreements of the
past. These discussions frequently led to real rapprochement,
dissipating erroneous impressions formed during earlier confrontations when
passions were less well controlled; and a mutual esteem previously unthought of
thus developed. It was this kind of information about the students that the
"unmaskers" particularly were after.
The individual under interrogation had to confess all the discussions he had
had with his fellows, report in detail all educational meetings that had dealt
with citizenship and political events, and denounce all who had shown attitudes
hostile to the prison administration or made sarcastic remarks in connection
with interpretation of Marxism, or jokes about Stalin the "teacher. "
Answers were required to such questions as who among the students had a
"fanatical" attitude; or was better informed; or was capable of
polarizing the younger members around him; who gave medical help to those
condemned to hard labor -- all this in order to determine precisely the
classification of individuals for eventual use in "unmasking" those
who as yet had not walked through the fire.
When the student had declared all, or as much as he had to in order to
convince the re-education committee that he was hiding nothing, only then began
the real tragedy, the "inner unmasking," the attempt to annihilate
the soul. Through the first unmasking he had given over enough information and
names to the Securitate to destroy collaborators still free; now he would be
forced to yield up his own personality for immolation. The re-educators hoped
to destroy the moral and psychological strength of his inner being and
transform him into amorphous material, to be shaped by them into a "new
structurization. "
To this end the students were obliged to crush underfoot everything they
held most sacred -- God, family, friends, love, wife, colleagues, memories,
ideology -- everything which bound them to the past, anything that might give
them inner support while in prison.
When the student had passed this test also, to the satisfaction of the
re-educators, he became an "honest and clean" vessel worthy of
receiving the new doctrine of Marxist humanism, embodied at that time in the
person of "the genial leader of the peoples," Mr. J. V. Stalin.
In the name of this doctrine of re-structuring, and to justify the
unmaskings in his own way, Turcanu used to say:
"You bandit, I beat in you the Legionary criminal (or the National
Party member, as the case might be); I have nothing against you personally. By
my action, I am helping you to discard the criminal concept that brought you
here, and am preparing you to join in a new cause, more just, the cause of the
working people. "
As a matter of fact, this is the kind of treatment which, on different
levels and in different terms, is applied to all of society under Communist
tutelage. Through devious propaganda manipulation, the Communists try to make
man believe that general pauperism is not real, that the state of affairs could
not be better, and that this is the only road to happiness ...
For those who have lived under Communism, a paradox such as this is not
uncommon, and they are not long surprised at the considerable disproportion
between what is claimed and what is actually done. For instance, all kinds of
laws are enacted to satisfy every human need, but exactly the opposite is
practiced. But about this one cannot speak in a loud voice ...