COMMUNIST CONTROL TECHNIQUES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03362A000800170001-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 122
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: April 2, 1956
• Content Type: REPORT

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S E C R E T
COMMUNIST CONTROL TECHNIQUES
An Analysis of The Methods Used By Communist
State Police In The Arrest, Interrogation, and
Indoctrination of Persons Regarded as "Enemies
of The State"
2 APRIL 1956
S E C R E T
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PART I
Introduction 1
PART II - Methods of the Soviet State Police 6
Section 1 - The Suspect 7
Section 2 - The Accumulation of Evidence 10
Section 3 - The Arrest Procedure 13
Section 4 -- The Detention Prison 15
Section 5 - The Regimen within the
Detention Prison 17
Section 6 The Effects of the Regimen
within the Isolation Cell 20
Section 7 .- The Feelings and Attitudes of
the Prisoner During the
Isolation Regimen
Section 8 - Other Pressures of the
Isolation Regimen 25
Section 9 - The Interrogator 27
Section 10 - Interrogation 29
Section 11 - Pressures Applied by The
Interrogator
Section 12 - The "Friendly Approach" 40
Section 13 - The Course of the
Interrogation 42
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Section _14 - The Psychological Interaction
Between Prisoner and
Interrogator
Section 15 - The Reaction of the Prisoner
to the Interrogation
48
Section 16 - The "Trial"
54
Section 17 - Public Confessions
59
Section 18 - Punishment
68
PART III - Practices in Communist China
69
Section 1 -
A Comparison of Chinese
Methods With Those of the
KGB
69
Section 2 -
The Suspects, Investigation,
and Arrest
75
Section 3 -
Chinese Prison Routine
77
Section 4 -
Interrogation
81
Section 5 -
The Indoctrination Procedure
in the Group Cell
86
Section 6 -
The Reaction of the Prisoner
to the Procedure in the Group
Cell
92
Section 7 -
The "Conversion'.'
98
Section 8 -
The Trial
104
Section 9
The "Brain Washed"
105
Section 10 -
The Effectiveness of Chinese
Communist Indoctrination
Procedures
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PART IV - A Theoretical Analysis of the Effects
of the Communist Interrogation -
Indoctrination Process
S E C R E T
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Introduction
The Communists are skilled in the extraction
of information from prisoners, and in making prison-
ers do their bidding. It has even appeared that they
can force men to confess to crimes which have not
been committed and then, apparently, to believe in the
truth of their confessions, and express sympathy and
gratitude toward those who have imprisoned them.
Many have found it hard to understand that the Commu-
nists do not possess new and remarkable techniques of
psychological manipulation. Some have recalled the
extraordinary confessions of men such as Cardinal
Mindszenty and William Oatis, and the unusual be-
havior of the old Bolsheviks at the Purge Trials in
the 1930cs, and have seen an alarming parallel.
These prisoners were men of intelligence, ability
and strength of character. They had every reason to
oppose their captors. Their confessions were pal-
pably untrue. Such behavior is, if anything, even
more difficult to explain than that of some of our pri-
soners of war in Korea.
The techniques used by the Communists have
been the subject of speculation. A number of theories
about them have been advanced by psychiatrists and
psychologists, (11 most of them based upon some
1. Meerloo, J. A.M., "Pavlovian Strategy as a
Weapon of Menticide", Am. J. Psychiat, 110:809,
May 1954
See also articles by the same author in Am. J.
Psychiat, 107:594, Feb. 1951, in Explorations in
Psychoanallysis, New York Julian Press, 1953, and
in Conversation and Communication, New York
Int. Univ. Press, 1952
Also articles by J.C. Moloney, "Psychic Self-Abandon
and Extortion of Confessions, "Int. J. of Psychoanalysis,
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modification of the conditioned reflex concepts of I. P.
Pavlov, the Russian neurophysiologist. The term
"brain washing", originated by a reporter who inter-
viewed Chinese refugees in Hong Kong, (2) has caught
the public fancy, and has gained world-wide accept-
ance. It.is now commonly used as a name for the
Communist "thought reform" techniques. A number
of attempts have been made to provide a scientific
definition for this term, which have had the effect of
confirming the general impression that "brain
washing" is in fact a scientifically designed and high-
ly organized specific technique for the manipulation of
human behavior.. Many of these speculations about
"brain washing" are not supported by the available
evidence.
The Communists, however, do make an
orderly attempt to obtain information from their
prisoners, and to convert their prisoners to forms
of behavior and belief acceptable to their captors.
They have had some success in their efforts, and
this success ha-s had a good deal of propaganda value
for them. it has also had some intelligence value
for them, for it has yielded valuable information, and
it has caused the defection of Americans both military
personnel -and civilians. For the-se reasons, if for
no others, it is important that we have as clear an
understanding as possible about their methods. The
present report describes, therefore, the nature of
the interrogation and indoctrination methods which
the Communists use, how these methods originated,
how they are applied, their effectiveness, their
purpose, and their expected use in the future.
36:53, Jan. 1955 and Winokur, G., "Brainwashing' - A
Social Phenomenon of Our Time", in Human Organi-
zation, 13:16, Winter, 1955
2. Hunter, Edward, Brainwashing in Red China,
New York, the Vanguard Press, 1951
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S E C R E T
The information contained in this report was
obtained from a number of sources. Details of the
Communist arrest and interrogation systems, and a
great deal of information about the purposes, atti-
tudes, and training of those who administer them,
were obtained during a series of special interviews
with five former Secret Police officials from the
Soviet Union and satellite countries. Some of these
men were long-term Communists who had occupied
important posts in their police apparatus. They had
an extensive and detailed knowledge of their pro-
fession. Their information was compared with other
information about police practices in Communist and
non-Communist nations.
Knowledge of the prisoners' reactions to their
experiences was obtained by the direct observation of
persons recently released from Communist prisons.
Some of these observations continued for weeks and
were supplemented by follow-up observations over
periods of months. They included complete physical,
neurological, and psychiatric examinations, and often
psychological testing as well. They were supplemented
by information supplied by families, friends, and former
associates. Among those studied intensively were
military and civilian prisoners of diverse ranks and
backgrounds, women as well as men, defectors, so-
called "turncoats" and resistors, persons "brain
washed" and "not brain washed", some who admittedly
revealed information and some who said they did not.
In supplement to this, a thorough survey was
made of classified government documents. Extensive
use has been made of reports of earlier investigations
carried out by the Army and the Air Force, and of the
material assembled for the Defense Advisory Committee
on Prisoners of War. The very large public literature
on these subjects has been reviewed also, and drawn
upon when it was helpful. Finally, various laboratory
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and clinical investigations have been carried out in
order to throw light upon the psychological and
physiological processes involved in some of the
interrogation and indoctrination procedures.
The evidence from each source has been
checked against that from the others to provide a
basis for the validity of the statements which are
made in this report and the conclusions which have
been drawnfrom them, which may be summarized
thus:
1. The interrag-ation methods used by the
state police in Communist countries are elabora-
tions and refinements of police practices, many of
which were known and used before the Russian
Communist Revolution. Scientists did not partici-
pate in their design, and do not take part in their
execution. Drugs and hypnosis play no significant
part in them.
2. The principles and practices used by the
Communist state police in the development of suspects,
the accumulation of evidence, and the carrying out of
arrest, detention, interrogation, trial, and punish-
ment are well known. The effects of these upon prison-
ers are well known also.
3. The "confessions" obtained by Communist
state police are readily understandable as results of
the police control pressures used. There is little
that is new in their repertoire beyond the extent of
application and organization in administering control
techniques.
4. Chinese methods of dealing with political
prisoners and "enemies of the state" were adapted
from those of the Russians.
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S E C R E T
5. The intensive indoctrination of political
prisoners is a practice peculiar to the Chinese
Communists. The methods used in this indoctri-
nation are known, and their effects are understand-
able.
6. Methods can be developed which will help
prisoners to withstand some of the effects of the
Communist imprisonment-interrogation-indoctri-
nation regimen.
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METHODS OF THE SOVIET STATE POLICE
The imprisonment - -interrogation techniques
currently employed by the Soviets to obtain confes-
sions of guilt are elaborations and refinements of
police and political practices which were known and
used before the Russian Communist revolution. Their
development is partly determined by certain Commu-
nist legal and ideological concepts which differ from
those of the West. The following sections describe
the various pressures applied to -the prisoner by the
Soviet State Police, currently known as the KGB*.
Incorporated with the description is a discussion of
the Communist principle or concept which is the
ostensible reason for using each step, and primary
attention is given to the reaction of the prisoner to
each of the pressures. The methods of the Soviet
police are considered in the greatest detail because
in large measure they constitute a prototype for
those employed by the satellite and Chinese police
systems.
* The Soviet secret police system has passed through
a number of reorganizations and has appeared under
several names. Its present title is KGB (Committee
for State Security). In this report the current title
is used even though some of the references apply also
to predecessors such as the MVD, NKVD, OGPU, etc.
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Section 1: The Suspect
Those who fall under the suspicion of the KGB
usually have some reason for exciting its suspicion.
To the victim himself, such suspicion may appear to
be capricious or arbitrary, because he may be utter-
ly unaware of the basis for it. The Russian definition
of "crimes against the state" or political crimes is a
broad one, and the interpretation of these Russian
laws is largely in the hands of the KGB; for all practi-
cal purposes it may find reason to suspect anyone.
From long practice this organization has developed
the thesis that those who conspire against the state will
fall into recognized categories. First of all, there are
those members of the Communist party who have come
under suspicion by the party apparatus, or who have
been criticized for failure in some activity. Since "the
Party can do no wrong", failure may become the equi-
valent of sabotage or treason. Secondly, there are
those who have travelled abroad or who have had associ-
ation with foreigners. This, of course, includes all
foreigners; but it also includes former prisoners of
war, Soviet functionaries who have served abroad, and
even members of the KGB itself. Thirdly, members
of certain Soviet nationalities which are suspected of
nationalist aspirations may also be suspected as a
group. The Volga Germans and the Chichen-Ingush
are examples. The most recent example was the
suspicion cast upon all Jews during the period from
1950 to 1952 when complaints of "cosmopolitanism"
were being made against this group. Fourthly,
certain segments of Soviet society, such as the
"Kulaks" of the early 1930's or the Army in 1937-39
are suspect. Fifth, there are those whose class
origin is considered bourgeois or aristocratic. These
are fewer in number than they used to be; but they
formerly constituted a large group of natural suspects.
In times of unrest or mass hysteria, such as occurred
during the purge trials or during World War II, all
persons in this category became "suspects" and sub-
ject to arrest.
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In addition to these "general suspects", there
are "specific suspects", who become such either
because suspicion has been cast upon them by one of
the many informants among the general population,
or because they are relatives, friends, or former
associates of other persons who have been arrested
or are suspected. Other specific suspects are -those
who either intentionally or unintentionally have made
statements, or carried out acts which the police re-
gard as evidence of criminal, -anti-state activity.
The following general assumptions can be made:
(1) Although the suspect may not know why he
is suspected, the KGB has some reason for singling
him out.
(2) Because of the broad nature of Soviet laws,
and the free manner in which the KGB can interpret
these, any "suspect" has comitted some "crime against
the state" as the KGB defines the term.
The implications of this statement are signifi-
cant. In a nation in which the state owns all property,
where everyone works for the state, and where only
approved opinions may be held, -a person who has
accidentally broken or lost some of the "people's
property", who has made a mistake, who has not
worked hard enough, who has talked to a foreigner,
or who has merely expressed what he inferred was an
innocent opinion, may be ipso facto guilty of a "crime
against the state. " Thus, those who fall into the
various categories of "natural suspects" constitute
a reservoir of potential victims for the secret police.
Sometime-s purely bureaucratic needs within
the secret police organization are the occasion for
arrest. Since the effectiveness of the organization
in the various districts is judged by the number of
arrests and convictions obtained, when the leader
of a district fears that his organization is falling
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behind, he will generate local pressures for more
arrests; the victims, of course, will be selected from
appropriate groups of suspects. The result of all of
this is that many of the victims of the secret police
apparatus are seized for reasons quite.beyond their
own control which are not immediately related to
anything that they may have done.
In spite of the fact that the KGB is often taken
up with the arrest, interrogation, and punishment of
persons whose position is essentially that of potential
enemies of the state, it is primarily concerned with
the detection and punishment of those who are acti-
vely engaged in criminal activities in the Western
sense. In dealing with political rebels and foreign
agents, it uses the same methods as those which it
uses in handling other categories of political pri-
soners, except that the obviously incriminating
evidence with which they are generally picked up
greatly simplifies the procedure for extracting a
confession.
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Section 2: The Accumulation of Evidence
It is an administrative principle of the Soviet
government that no one may be arrested unless there
is evidence that he is a criminal.
According to the practice of the KGB this means
that when a man fall-s under the suspicion of -a KGB
officer, this officer must accumulate "evidence"-that
the man is a "criminal", and take this evidence to the
-state prosecutor, who must then issue a warrant be-
fore the arrest can be carried out. When a man
falls under the -suspicion of the KGB, an officer in
the Investigation Section draws up a plan for the in-
vestigation -of his case. The plan describes why the
man is suspected, who are his suspected associates,
what -evidence is needed to arrest him, how he shall
be placed under surveillance, how the evidence shall
be gathered, and how he shall be arrested. This plan
is submitted to his superiors for comment, criticism,
and approval, and then put into action. One informant
estimates that "more than 851/o" of those who are thus
"formally suspected" are ultimately arrested. The
investigating officer accumulates "evidence" by show-
ing that the victim had a reason to be a criminal (i. e. ,
that he was a member of a suspect group) and by
accumulating the statements of spies and informants with
regard to him. If this "evidence " is not sufficient to
satisfy the officer, he places the -suspect and the sus-
pectts friends and associates under surveillance. These
friends and associates may be held for interrogation in
order to supply evidence against the suspect, the reason
for their seizure being that they are associate-s of -a
-suspect, and therefore suspect themselves.
Covert surveillance and the arrest of associates
are carried out carefully, but they cannot always be
concealed from the -suspect. He may become aware of
it, or his friends may tell him. As he becomes a
marked man in-the eyes of his friend-s, they begin to
avoid him. Their demeanor sometimes indicates to
him that he is under suspicion. The knowledge that
he.will be arrested, without knowledge of when this
will occur, obviously creates anxiety in the intended
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victim. Although KGB officers know about the psycho-
logical effect which surveillance has upon suspects,
and make use of it, they do not use it with the calcu-
lated cunning that the victim sometimes supposes.
Poorly concealed surveillance, and the arrest of
friends and associates, followed after an indefinite
period by the arrest of the main suspect, are not
necessarily stage maneuvers to frighten the victim.
Often they are simply evidence of rather slow and
clumsy police activities.
Members of the KGB compete with one another
in trying to turn up suspects and secure their con-
viction. To a certain extent, officers are judged by
the number of arrests which they obtain. Since
Soviet "principles" demand that no person be
arrested except when it is clear that he is a criminal,
officers who arrest men who must later be released
are subject to censure. They have made a mistake,
because they have arrested a man who is not a crimi-
nal.
The consequences are important from the point
of view of the victim. In effect, any man who is
arrested is automatically in the position of being
"guilty".* If the "evidence" should be insufficient
to substantiate his guilt, those in charge of his case
are subject to censure. In theory, those making the
arrest should have accumulated beforehand sufficient
evidence of guilt to satisfy both their superior officers
and the state prosecutor. It is usually not difficult
to satisfy these officials. Nevertheless, this require-
ment for sufficient evidence of guilt puts pressure upon
* A discussion of the Communist concept of "guilt
and the meaning of this term to "KGB officers is
presented in Section 16 (Part II).
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the junior officers of the -KGB who are anxious to estab-
lish a reputation for themselves, and sometimes they
may falsify the "evidence" which they present to the
prosecutor. This is a forbidden practice, for which
the offending officer could be punished if he were
"officially" found out. The officers who took part in
staging the famous "doctor's plot" of 19-52 were punish-
ed later for "falsifying.the evidence". But when the
KGB is unde-r pressure to secure convictions, and
when-this pressure comes from high in the Party,
"falsification of evidence", like the use of physical
brutality in obtaining confessions, may be a wide-
spread procedure. It is never "officially" condoned.
Anyone arrested by the KGB must know that in
the eyes of the Soviet state, and in the eyes of those
who have arrested him, he is a "criminal". The only
question to be settled after his arrest is the extent -of
his criminal activity and the precise nature of his
crimes. The officers in charge of his case, both those
who have made the arrest and those who will carry out
the interrogation, have _a personal interest in seeing
that the arrested man makes a prompt and extensive
confession; _for their own reputations are at stake.
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Section 3: The Arrest Procedure
It is a Communist principle that men should be
arrested in a manner which will not cause them em-
barrassment, and that the police should carry out
arrests in a manner which will not unduly disturb the
population.
In the United States, it is said that a man is
"arrested" when the police seize him, detain him, or
otherwise deprive him of his freedom; and the United
States law requires that the police obtain a "warrant"
or comply with certain other legal procedures before
carrying out an arrest. In the Soviet Union the KGB
may obtain a "warrant" from the state prosecutor
before seizing a man, but it is not required to do so.
It may "detain" a man on suspicion, and interrogate
him "to see if he is a criminal". What would be
called "arrest" in the U. S. may be carried out in the
Soviet Union with or without a warrant. The process
of seizure is the same in either case.
For more than twenty years it has been the
practice of the Russian State Police to seize their
suspects in the middle of the night. The "midnight
knock on the door" has become a standard episode
in fiction about Russia. The police are well aware
of the fact that the intended victim, forewarned by
his previous surveillance and the changing attitude
of his friends, is further terrified by the thought
that he may be awakened from his sleep almost any
night and taken away. The official explanation for
the nighttime arrests is that such a procedure avoids
the embarrassment and alarm which would be creat-
ed if the victim were seized in the daytime. It is
customary for the arresting officer to be accompanied
by several other men. He usually reads to the pri-
soner the arrest warrant if there is one. It does not,
of course, specify the details of the crimes committed.
The prisoner is then taken promptly to a detention
prison.
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An alternate method of arrest, for which the
same official explanation-is given, is to carry out
the procedure in a city not the home of the -suspect.
In order to accomplish this, men under suspicion are
ordered by their superiors to travel on some pretext
or other. Before the victim reache-s his destination,
he is arrested and taken from the train. A third
method, said to be preferred when there is no warrant,
is to seize the victim -suddenly as he walks down the
street. All of these procedures create intense anxiety
in the victim; and in the population at large they create
all of the alarm which may be generated by the sudden
and unexplained disappearance of an individual from
the midst of his family and friends..
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Section 4: The Detention Prison
According to Soviet administrative principles, a
man who is arrested by the State Police is not "imprison-
ed". He is merely "detained". In theory, he is detained
in a quiet, healthy atmosphere where he has an opportu-
nity to meditate upon his crimes, and a chance to talk
them over freely and at length with police officers, with-
out being prejudiced by friends, associates, or lawyers
who might induce him to distort the truth.
In most of the large cities of the Soviet Union the
KGB operates detention prisons. These prisons contain
only persons under "investigation", whose cases have
not yet been "settled". The most modern of these pri-
sons are separate institutions, well built and spotlessly
clean. In addition to the cells for the prisoners, they
contain offices for the KGB units, rooms in which
interrogations are carried out, and other rooms, usually
in the basement, in which prisoners are executed when
such punishment is decided upon. There are attached
medical facilities, and rooms for the care of the sick
detainees. An exercise yard is a standard facility. In
outlying areas or undeveloped regions, the KGB may
occupy a separate wing of a general prison, and use
this as a detention prison. Facilities in these areas may
be ancient or inadequate, depending upon what is avail-
able; but the detention wing itself is administered sepa-
rately from that of the rest of the prison, and prisoners
under detention are segregated from general prisoners.
Most of the cells in Soviet detention prisons are
designed for one occupant. The typical cell is a small
cubicle, about 10 ft. long by 6 ft. wide, containing a
single bunk and a slop jar. It usually has no other
furnishings. Its walls are barren, and it is lighted by a
single electric lamp in the ceiling. One wall usually
contains a small window above eye level, from which
the prisoner can see nothing of his outside environment.
The door contains a peephole through which the
guard in the corridor outside may observe the prisoner
at will without the prisoner's knowledge.
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There also may be cells which are large enough
to hold two or more prisoners. Except for size, such
cells are not different-from -the others. In general,
prisoners whose cases are relatively unimportant, those
against whom the evidence is "complete", and those who
have indicated a willingness to talk freely, are placed
in cells with other prisoners, some of whom are usually
informers. Those whose cases are important or "incom-
plete", those from whom information is desired, and
those for whom public trials or propaganda confessions
are planned, are put in solitary confinement.
Such typical cells will not, of course, be found
in. all prisons, and especially not in those which are old
or improvised; but the general aspect of barrenness and
complete lack of access to the outside world is character-
istic.
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Section 5: The Regimen within the Detention Prison
The arresting officers usually do not give the
prisoner any reason for his arrest beyond that in the
warrant which they read to him. They usually search
him, and also search the place in which he lives. They
then take him directly to the prison. Here he is asked
a few questions about his identity, and his personal
valuables and outer clothing are taken from him. These
are carefully catalogued and put away.* He may or may
not be given a prison uniform. He is usually examined
by a prison physician shortly after his incarceration.
The entire introduction to the detention prison
is brief and is carried on without explanation. Within
a few hours after his arrest the prisoner finds him-
self locked up within a cell.
An almost invariable feature of the management
of any important suspect under detention is a period of
total isolation in a detention cell. The prisoner is
placed within his cell, the door is shut, and for an
indefinite period he is totally isolated from human con-
tact except by the specific direction of the officer in
charge of his case. He is not allowed to talk to the
guards or to communicate with other prisoners in any
manner. When he is taken from his cell for any rea-
son he is accompanied by a guard. If another prisoner
approaches through the corridor he turns his face to
the wall until the other prisoner has passed.
* It is an interesting comment on the "legalistic"
behavior of the KGB that prisoners who have been
detained, interrogated, tortured, imprisoned at
length, and ultimately released after many years, may
then receive all of their original clothing and personal
valuables, which have been scrupulously cared for dur-
ing their imprisonment.
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The hours and routine of the prisoner are
rigidly organized. He is awakened early in the
morning and given a short period in which to wash
himself. His food is brought to him. He has a
short and fixed time in which to eat it; the stand-
ard diet is just adequate to maintain nutrition. He
must clean himself and police his own cell; but he is
not allowed enough time to keep it spotles-sly clean.
At some time in the morning he usually has an
exercise period. Typically, his exercise consists
of walking alone in the exercise yard. If he is in
rigid isolation, he may not be allowed to exerci-se
at all. He is usually allowed a slop jar in his cell
which he can utilize for defecation and urination,
but sometimes this is taken away. Then he must
call the guard and perhaps wait for hours to be
taken to the latrine.
- At all times except when he is eating, sleep-
ing, exerci-sing,- or being interrogated, the prisoner
is left strictly alone in his cell. He has nothing
to do, nothing to read, and no one to talk to. Under
the strictest regimen he may have to sit or stand
in his cell in a fixed position all day. He may
sleep only at hours prescribed for sleep. Then he
must go to bed promptly when told, and must lie in
a fixed position upon his back with his hands out- -
.side the blanket. If he deviates from this position,
the guard outside will awaken him and make him re-
sume it. The light in his cell burns constantly. He
must sleep with his face constantly toward it.
If the prisoner becomes -ill, he is taken to
a prison -physician, by whom he -is treated with the
best medical care available, according to the
practices common to Soviet medicine. If necessary
he may be placed under hospital care; but as soon
as he has recovered the regimen will be resumed.
Prisoners who attempt to commit suicide are
thwarted and carefully nursed until they recover;
then the -regimen is resumed.
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Deviations from the prescribed regimen are
promptly noticed by the guards and are punished.
Disturbed behavior is punished also. If this be-
havior persists and the officer in charge of the case
is convinced that the prisoner has become mentally
ill, the man may be placed under medical care until
his health has returned; then the regimen is resumed.
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Section 6: The Effects of the Regimen in the Isolation
Cell
The effects of this regimen upon prisoners are
striking. * It has been mentioned that the man who has
been arrested by the KGB is usually intensely appre-
hensive. Often he has known for weeks that he would
be arrested, but has had no clear knowledge of when,
or for what reason. He has been seized in the middle
of the night and taken without explanation to a for -
midable prison. He knows that no friend can help
him, and that the KGB may do with him what they
please.
A major aspect of his prison experience is
-isolation. Man is a social animal; he does not live
alone. From birth to death, he lives in the company
of his fellow men. When he is totally isolated, he
is removed from all of the interpersonal relations
which are so important to him, and taken out of the
social role which sustains him. His internal as well
*The reaction to be described in this and the following
sections is that of a "typical" man, previously untrain-
ed, who has never been imprisoned or isolated before,
and who has been arrested for a serious, but not speci-
fied, crime against the state of which he could be "guilty".
Even among such men, there are wide differences in the
capacity to tolerate the isolation regimen. Some become
demoralized within a few days, while others are -able to
retain a high degree of self control for mnnths. In
addition tothis, most men possess the capacity to adapt
to isolation, and those who experience the isolation
regimen a second time almost always tolerate it better,
and longer. Previous training and the circumstances
of seizure are important also. Untrained men -seized
in flagrante delicto may be rapidly disorganized; while
those convinced of their innocence and familiar with
KGB methods may be able to stand up under isolation
for a long time.
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as his external life is disrupted. Exposed for the
first time to total isolation in a KGB prison, he
develops a predictable group of symptoms, which
might almost be called a "disease syndrome". The
guards and KGB officers are quite familiar with this
syndrome. They watch each new prisoner with
technical interest as his symptoms develop.
The initial appearance of an arrested
prisoner is one of bewilderment. For a few
hours he may sit quietly in his cell looking con-
fused and dejected. But within a short time most
prisoners become alert, and begin to take an
interest in their environment. They react with
expectancy when anyone approaches the door to
the cell. They show interest and anxiety as they
are exposed to each new feature of the prison
routine. They may ask questions or begin con-
versations. Some make demands: they demand to
know why they are being held, and protest that
they are innocent. If they are foreign nationals,
they may insist upon seeing their consular officers.
Some take a "you can't do this to me attitude. " Some
pass through a brief period of shouting, threatening,
and demanding. All of this is always sternly re-
pressed. If need be, the officer in charge of the
case will see the prisoner, remind him of the rou-
tine, threaten him with punishment, and punish
him if he does not subside:O' During this period
the prisoner has not yet appreciated the full im-
port of his situation. He tries to fraternize with
the guards. He leaves part of his food if he does
not like it. He tries to speak to prisoners whom
he passes in the corridors, and reaches back to
close the door behind him when he is takento the
latrine. The guards refer to this as the period
of getting "acclimatized" to the prison routine.
The punishments used are described on pages 25-27
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After a few days it becomes apparent to
the prisoner that his activity avails him nothing,
and that he will be punished or reprimanded for
even the smallest breaches of the routine. He
wonders when he will be released or questioned.
His requests have been listened to but never act-
ed upon. He becomes increasingly anxious and
restless, and his sleep is disturbed. He begins
to look up alertly when anyone passes in the
corridor. He jumps when the guard comes to
the door. He becomes "adjusted" to the routine
in his cell, and goes through it punctiliously; but
he still leaves some of his food, and occasionally
he reveals by small gestures his lack of complete
submission to his environment.
The period of anxiety, hyperactivity and
apparent adjustment to the isolation routine usually
continues from l to 3 weeks. As it continues, the
prisoner becomes increasingly dejected and depend-
ent. He gradually gives up all spontaneous activity with-
in his cell, and ceases to care about his personal ap-
pearance and actions. Finally, he sits and -stares with
a vacant expression, perhaps endlessly twisting a
button on his coat. He allows himself to become dirty
and disheveled. When food is presented to him, he
eats it all but he no longer bothers with the niceties
of eating. He may mix it into a mush and stuff it
into his mouth like an animal. He goes through the
motions -of his prison routine automatically, as if
he were in a daze. The slop jar is no longer offen-
sive to him. Ultimately he seems to lose many of
the restraints of ordinary behavior. He may soil
himself. He weeps, he mutters, and he prays aloud
in his cell. He follows the orders of the guard with
the docility of a trained animal. Indeed, the guards
say that such prisoners are "reduced to animals".
They estimate that in the average case it will take
from 4 to 6 weeks of rigid, total isolation to pro-
duce this phenomenon in a newly imprisoned man.
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S E C R E T
Section 7: The Feelings and Attitudes of the Prisone.
During the Isolation Regimen
The man who for the first time experiences
isolation in prison is, of course, experiencing far
more than simple isolation. He usually feels pro-
foundly anxious, helpless, frustrated, dejected,
and entirely uncertain about his future. His initial
reaction to the isolation procedure is indeed one of
bewilderment and some numbness at the calamity
which has befallen him. This is followed by a
period of interest and apprehension about every de-
tail of the prison regimen, accompanied by hope
that he can explain everything as soon as he gets a
chance, or an expectation that he will be released
when the proper authorities hear about his plight.
Such hopes last but a few days, but they keep him
alert and interested during that time.
As hope disappears, a reaction of anxious
waiting supervenes. In this period, the profound
boredom and complete loneliness of his situation
gradually overwhelm the prisoner. There is
literally nothing for him to do except ruminate and
because he has so much to worry about, his ru-
minations are seldom pleasant. Frequently, they
take the form of going over and over all the possible
causes for his arrest. His mood becomes one of
dejection. His sleep is disturbed by nightmares.
Ultimately he may reach a state of depression in
which he ceases to care about his personal appear-
ance and behavior and pays little attention to his
surroundings. In this state the prisoner may have
illusory experiences. A distant sound in the
corridor sounds like someone calling his name.
The rattle of a footstep may be interpreted as a
key in the lock opening the cell.
Some prisoners may become delirious and
have visual hallucinations. God may appear to such
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a prisoner and tell him to cooperate with his interro-
gator. He may see his wife standing beside him,
or a servant bringing him a large- meal. In nearly
all cases the prisonerts need for human companion-
ship and his desire to talk to anyone about anything
becomes a gnawing appetite. if he is given an
opportunity to talk, he may say anything which seems
to be appropriate, or to be desired by his listener;
for in his confused and befuddled state he may be un-
able to tell what is "actually true" from what "might
be" or "should be" true. He may be highly suggestible,
and may "confabulate" the details of any- story suggest-
ed to him.
Not all men who first experience total
isolation react in precisely this manner. In some,
these symptoms are less conspicuous. Others,
especially those with pre-existing personality dis-
turbances, may become frankly psychotic. However,
frank psychotic manifestations, other than those
of the "prison psychosis" described above, are not
usual, primarily because those having charge of the
prisoners usually break the routine of total isolation
when they see that disorganization of the prisoner's
personality is imminent.
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Section 8: Other Pressures of the Isolation Regimen
Not all of the reaction to this imprisonment
experience can be attributed to isolation alone. Other
potent forces are acting upon the newly imprisoned
man. The prisoner's anxiety about himself is com-
pounded by worry about what may happen to his
friends and associates, and, in the case of those who
possess information which they wish to hide, appre-
hension about how much the KGB knows or will find
out. Even in the absence of isolation, profound and un-
controlled anxiety is disorganizing. Uncertainty com-
pounds his anxiety also. The newly arrested prisoner
does not know how long he will be confined, how he
will be punished, or with what he will be charged. He
does know that his punishment may be anything up to
death or permanent imprisonment. Many prisoners
say that uncertainty is the most unbearable aspect of
the whole experience. Sleep disturbances and night-
mares lead to further fear and fatigue.
The effects of isolation, uncertainty and
anxiety are usually sufficient to make the prisoner
eager to talk to his interrogator and to seek some
method of escape from a situation which has become
intolerable. But, if these alone are not enough to
produce the desired effect, the officer in charge has
other simple and highly effective ways of applying
pressure. Two of the most effective of these are
fatigue and lack of sleep. The constant light in the
cell and the necessity of maintaining a rigid position
in bed compound the effects of anxiety and nightmares
in producing sleep disturbances. If these are not
enough, it is easy to have the guards awaken the
prisoner at intervals. This is especially effective
if the prisoner is always awakened as soon as he
drops off to sleep. The guards can also shorten
the hours available for sleep, or deny sleep alto-
gether. Continued loss of sleep produces clouding
of consciousness and a loss of alertness, both of
which impair the victim's ability to sustain iso -
lation. It also produces profound fatigue.
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Another simple and effective type of pressure
is that of maintaining the temperature of the cell at a
-level which -is either too hot or too cold for comfort.
Continuous heat, at a level at -which constant sweating
is necessary in order to maintain body temperature, is
enervating and fatigue producing. Sustained cold is
uncomfortable and poorly tolerated. Yet another method
of creating pressure is to reduce the food ration to the
point at which the prisoner is constantly hungry. This
usually involves loss of weight, which is often associat-
ed with weakness and asthenia. -Furthermore, depri-
vation of foo-d produces lassitude, loss of general
interest and some breakdown of courage. Some people
become profoundly depressed when deprived of food.
The effects of isolation, anxiety, fatigue, lack
of sleep, uncomfortable temperatures, and chronic
hunger produce disturbances of mood, attitudes, and be-
havior in nearly all prisoners. The living organism can-
not entirely withstand such assaults. The Communists
do not look upon these assaults as "torture". Undoubt-
edly, they use the methods which they do in order to
conform, in a typical legalistic manner to overt Commun-
ist principles which demand that "no force or torture be
used in extracting information from prisoners. " But
these methods do, of course, constitute torture and
physical coercion. All of them lead to serious disturb-
ances of many bodily processes.
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Section 9: The Interrogator
The KGB officer who has charge of a case dur-
ing the period of suspicion, surveillance and arrest is
now supplanted by another officer who is charged with
the interrogation of the prisoners and the preparation
of the deposition. (Prisoners commonly refer to this
document as the "confession".)
Within the KGB assignments to interrogation
are not highly regarded. Most KGB officers prefer to
go into offensive espionage or to join paramilitary
units. Relatively few of them wish to become involved
in political counterespionage, investigation and in-
terrogation. Such work is not looked upon as glam-
orous or exciting. Very often it involves assignment
to outlying and relatively dull regions of the Soviet
Union, and usually it is hard and thankless. The
interrogation of prisoners is a tiring and an emotion-
ally trying procedure. Thus, there is often defici-
ency of applicants for work in this section of the
secret police and local district officers of the KGB
must assign men to fill the necessary quota at the
state police school. KGB officers from other branch-
es of the service have reported to us that the assign-
ment is often given to the least desirable men in the
organization - "the eight ball", as one officer said.
It can be assumed that a majority of those involved
in the investigation and interrogation of unimportant
prisoners are men. of average ability with no great
enthusiasm for their job. However, the KGB does
also possess highly skilled, well educated, extremely
knowledgeable, experienced and able interrogators
who are devoted to their profession and proud of
their abilities. The interrogator assigned to an
important prisoner can be expected to be a man of
such high caliber.
Some of those who go into secret police
activity receive only a sort of "on the job" training
under the guidance of more senior and experienced
men; but a fair proportion of these police officers
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are especially trained at a KGB school near Moscow.
This school has been in existence for at least 15
years. It gives a course of two years duration. The
curriculum includes courses in the history of the
Soviet Government, the governmental structure of
the Soviet Union and of Capitalist countries, the
external policy of the Soviet Union, the development
of court procedures in the U.S.S.R. and in Capital-
ist countries, Soviet law, and Soviet criminal pro-
cedures, both political and civil. There are tech-
nical courses in criminology, techniques of investi-
gation and surveillance, the use of audio devices,
the recruitment of informers, and the accumulation
of evidence. Some of the advanced lectures in
history, law and criminology are given by visiting
lecturers from Soviet universities. For students
who lack higher education, the school offers courses
in geography, history, Russian literature and so on.
There is, of course, a -great deal of study of Commun-
ism, and of the history of the Communist Party, which
is regarded as a most important part of the curriculum.
The course in the conduct of interrogations
includes a description of the various interrogation
methods that will be -discussed shortly. Tr-ainees are
allowed to observe a demonstration interrogation but
do not actually conduct interrogations themselves. No
formal training in psychology, psychiatry, pharmacology
or physiology is included in the curriculum. There are
no representatives of any of these sciences on the fac-
ulty and, as far as we have been able to ascertain,
there never have been. Trainees do receive infor-
mation from experienced police officers on how to
prepare a dossier, how to "size up" a man, and how
to estimate what sort of methods to use in "breaking"
him; but the instructors draw entirely upon police
experience. They have a contempt for theoretical
psychiatry and psychology, and for instruments such
as the polygraph.
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S E C R E T
Section 10: Interrogation
When the prisoner has been arrested and in-
carcerated in his cell the officer in charge of his case
submits to his superiors a plan for the interrogation
of the prisoner. This plan is drawn up on the basis
of what is already known about the prisoner. It
describes the methods to be used upon him, the atti-
tudes to be taken toward him, the type of information
which it is expected that he will reveal, and the type of
crimes which he is believed to have committed and
the assumed motivation for them. His superiors may
criticize or comment upon this plan and offer added
suggestions based upon their own experience. The
purpose of this plan appears to be primarily that of
making the interrogator approach the prisoner with
a definite conception of what he wants to do, and how
he is going to proceed in doing it. The plan need not
be adhered to rigidly if the development of the case
indicates that changes should be made ( ) In some
prisons the interrogator reviews the plan with his
superiors after each session and describes to them
how he intends to conduct the next session.
( ) One former Communist police officer describes
the plan thus: "Before any interrogation takes place
there is a plan which is worked out together with the
interrogator and the representative of the operation
section which handles the case, and it is divided into
three plans: (1) Case plan identification and assumed
motivation for the crime. (2) A statement from the
operation section of what the defendant is to confess
to and (3) A description of what the operation section
would like to prove through the case. The third part
is why the case has to be proved and what is to be
proved - an attempt is made to have any individual
crime woven into a larger pattern of crime against
the Communist Party."
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E C R E T
If a prisoner indicates at the time he is
seized that he is aware of his guilt and is prepared
to describe his crimes, the interrogator may begin
to question him very soon after his imprisonment.
This is true especially when the police already
possess a great deal of "evidence" and the pri-soner
readily confesses to the "crimes" which the inter-
rogator wishes to establish.
Likewise, if the prisoner is s-eized without
a warrant, the interrogator is likely to begin the
questioning early. Soviet law specifies that if a man
is "detained on suspicion" the first protocol of his
interrogation must be given to the state prosecutor
within ten days so that an arrest warrant may be
issued or the man may be released. In general,
interrogators are constrained to comply with this
regulation, and they try to produce enough evidence
to obtain an arrest within ten days. In many such
cases, because they have little except suspicion to
guide their questioning, they are necessarily vague
in describing the prisoner's crimes to him. They
must be cautious lest the prisoner get wind of what
they want him to say and refuse to say it. It is
probably this, more than any calculated cunning,
which causes them to make to the prisoner such
enigmatic statements as, "It -is not up to me to tell
you what your crimes are; itis up to you to tell me"
statements which lead the perplexed prisoner to
rack his brainfor an answer. The prosecutor is not
hard to satisfy, and the interrogator nearly always
obtains enough evidence to make an "arrest". If
not, he can apply for an extension of the detention
period.
The law provides no real protection for the
prisoner. KGB officers among our informants esti-
mated that "more than 99%" of those who are seized
are ultimately convicted and punished.
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Interrogations, once begun, are continued until
"the case is complete", but in some circumstances
they are intentionally delayed in their onset. It appears
that this delay is imposed when the prisoner is defiant,
when he is thought to be withholding information, when
the KGB is seeking a confession to crimes other than
those for which it has "evidence", and especially when
it wants to use the prisoner for a public trial or to
obtain a propaganda confession from him. In such cases,
the interrogation begins when the officer in charge feels
that the prisoner is ripe for it. This is usually when he
observes that the prisoner has become docile and com-
pliant and shows evidence of deterioration in his mood
and personal appearance.
? Interrogations are almost uniformly carried out
at night. It is said that this practice of night interro-
gation originated not from any preconceived idea of its
effectiveness, but because the early Chekists were so
overburdened with police duties during the day that
they could find time for interrogations only at night.
For one reason or another, it has become standard pro-
cedure, possibly because the physical and psychological
effect of night interrogations produces added pressure
upon the prisoner. He is deprived of sleep and placed
in a state of added uncertainty by never knowing when
he will be awakened and questioned. Typically, he
will be awakened suddenly by the guard shortly after
he has dropped off to sleep. Without explanation he is tak-
en from his cell and down several corridors, to a small
and barren interrogation room equipped with a desk and
chair for the interrogator and a stool for the prisoner.
The lighting is arranged so that the prisoner can be
placed in a bright light, while the interrogator sits in
relative darkness. Sometimes a stenographer is pre-
sent in one corner of the room to take notes. More
often the interrogator makes his own notes, writing
as the prisoner speaks. Usually only one interrogator
is present but occasionally other officers are intro-
duced. Sometimes interrogators alternate, for psycho-
logical reasons, one being "friendly" and the other
"hostile". If his work is successful, the original
interrogator may carry the case through to a con-
clusion, but if he does not achieve the desire goal,
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he may be removed and a new officer takes over the
interrogation.
The atmosphere of the interrogation room gen-
erally has some degree of formality about it. The
interrogator may be dressed in full uniform. If he
wishes to impress the prisoner, he may take out a
pistol, cock it, and lay it on the desk before him; but
this psychological gambit does not seem to be a re-
quired part of the protocol. The interrogator adjusts
his attitude toward the prisoner according to his
estimate of the kind of man he is facing. If the
dossier indicates that the pri-soner is a timid and
fearful man, the interrogator may adopt a fierce
-and threatening demeanor. If the pri-soner is thought
to be proud and sensitive, the interrogator may be
insulting and -degrading. If the prisoner has been a
man of prestige and importance in private life, the
interrogator may call him by his first name, treat
him as an inferior and remind him that he has lost
all rank and privilege. If the prisoner is thought to
be suggestible, the interrogator will try to in-
fluence him by suggestion. If the prisoner is known
as venal and self-seeking, the interrogator may try
to bribe him with promises of reward for cooperation.
If the prisoner has a tendency to blame others, the
interrogator may try to let him place the blame upon
others while describing his own activities as harm-
less. If the prisoner is known to have a wife and
children for whom he cares deeply, the interrogator
may threaten harm to them if the prisoner does not
cooperate, and promise to protect and help them if
he does. If it is known that the prisoner has been
unfaithful to his wife or has committed some crime
such as embezzlement, the interrogator may black-
mail him by threatening exposure or punishment un-
less he cooperates. All these and many other tricks
may be employed. They are not based upon a
scientific theory of human behavior; they are tricks
of the trade, so to speak, developed out of police
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experience and applied on a "rule of thumb", "common
sense" basis.
Almost invariably the interrogator takes the
attitude that the prisoner is guilty and acts as though
all of his crimes are known. Almost invariably he
points out to the prisoner that he is completely help-
less, and that there is no hope for him unless he
cooperates fully, and confesses his crimes completely.
Almost never does the interrogator state specifically
what the prisoner's crimes actually are. This is left
up to the prisoner, who is told, in effect, that he
knows the extent of his own crimes, and need only make
a complete statement of them.
Almost invariably the interrogator does not
accept the early statement of the prisoner. No
matter what crimes he confesses, the interrogator
forces the prisoner to repeat his statements again and
again, and to elaborate on them endlessly. Almost
always he uses any discrepancies as indications of
lying, and questions the prisoner at length about them.
The first interrogation sessions are nearly
always concerned with a complete review of the
entire life experience of the prisoner. The interro-
gator wishes to know about the prisoner's background,
his class origin, his parents, brothers and sisters,
his friends and associates, and everything that he has
done throughout his life. If the case is of any im-
portance, no detail is overlooked, and every period of
the prisoner's life must be accounted for.
This review of the prisoner's life may occupy
several interrogation sessions. It has several pur-
poses. The primary one is to complete the prisoner's
dossier. Furthermore, requiring a man to account
for every detail of his life produces a voluminous
and involved story, and the prisoner can scarcely avoid
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being trapped into inconsistencies if he is conceal-
ing anything. The information obtained from the
life hi-story can be compared with that already in
the police files, which are usually extensive. It
enables -the police to know the associates of the
prisoner, which is important, because these may
be his "accomplices in crime", who can be made
suspects also, and interrogated for further infor-
mation.
Perhaps its most important purpose is
that it reveals many "criminal" features of the
prisoner such as Reactionary class origin,
membership in Reactionary organizations and
association with enemies of the state, which are,
by Communist definition "crimes" no matter how
long ago they were committed.
The prisoner, taken from his cell after
a long period of isolation, anxiety and despair,
usually looks upon the first interrogation as a
welcome break. The mere opportunity to talk to
someone is intensely gratifying. Many prisoners
have reported that after long periods of isolation
they eagerly anticipate interrogation sessions and
try to prolong them simply for the companionship
which they afford. Not infrequentlythe prisoner
also regards interrogation as an opportunity to
justify himself, and feels a false assurance that
he can "explain everything" as -soon as he is given
a chance.
Usually he is much taken aback by the fact
that his crimes are not specified, and that his
guilt is assumed. He is further distressed when
his protestations of innocence are greeted as
lies. But the opportunity to talk about his life
experiences is generally looked upon, especially
by a person from Western society, as an oppor-
tunity to justify his behavior. Many men willing-
ly divulge all that they can remember about
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themselves because they feel quite sure that they
have done nothing which may be regarded as crimi-
nal. They are unaware that, from the point of view
of Communist legal theory and of the KGB much of
their past behavior undoubtedly will be construed as
"criminal" and held against them. If the interroga-
tor offers them the opportunity to have paper and
pencil in their cells and to write out their biographies,
they seize upon this avidly as a means of relieving
the boredom of the tedious, lonely routine to which
they are exposed.
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Section 11: Pressure-s Applied by The Interrogator
As the interrogation proceeds, the interro-
gator change-s his behavior according to his previous
plan and the development of the case. If the pri-
soner is cooperating and talking freely, the interro-
gator continue-s to. show a relatively friendly attitude.
But sooner or later he invariably expresses dissatis-
faction with the information which the prisoner has
given, no matter how complete it may be. He demands
new details, and usually shows an especially great
interest in the "accomplices" of the prisoner and the
"organization" to which he is supposed to have been
attached. When the prisoner protests that he has
told all, and denies any other crimes or accomplices,
the interrogator becomes hostile and begins to apply
pressure.
Some, of the pressures which can be applied
simply by altering the routine within the cell have
been described. The interrogator has many others
at his command. Continuous and -repetitive interro-
gation-is an effective and very common-form of
pressure. Another which is widely used is that of
requiring the prisoner to stand throughout the
interrogation session or to maintain some other phy-
sical position which becomes painful. This, like
other features of the KGB procedure, is a form of
physical torture, in spite of the fact that the pri-
soners and KGB officers alike do not ordinarily
perceive it as -such. Any fixed position which is
maintained over a long period of time ultimately
produces excruciating pain. Certain positions.,
of which the standing position is one, also produces
impairment of the circulation. Many men can with-
stand-the -pain of long standing, but sooner or later
all men succumb to the circulatory failure it pro-
duces. After 18-to 24 hours of continuous standing,
there is an -accumulation of fluid in the tissues of the
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legs. This dependent "edema" is produced by fluid from
the blood vessels. The ankles and feet of the prisoner
swell to twice their normal circumference. The edema
may rise up the legs as high as the middle of the thighs.
The skin becomes tense and intensely painful. Large
blisters develop which break and exude watery serum.
The accumulation of the body fluid in the legs produces an
impairment of the circulation. The heart rate increases
and fainting may occur. Eventually there is a renal shut-
down, and urine production ceases. The prisoner becomes
thirsty, and may drink a good deal of water, which is not
excreted, but adds to the edema of his legs. Men have
been known to remain standing for periods as long as
several days. Ultimately they usually develop a deliri-
ous state, characterized by disorientation, fear, de-
lusions, and visual hallucinations. This psychosis is
produced by a combination of circulatory impairment,
lack of sleep, and uremia.
Periods of long standing are usually interrupt-
ed from time to time by interrogation periods during
which the interrogator demands and threatens, while
pointing out to the prisoner that it would be easy for
him to end his misery merely by cooperating.
In addition to the physiological effects, this type
of torture creates a psychological conflict. When the
prisoner is required to stand in one position, there is
often engendered within him an initial determination to
"stick it out". This internal act of resistance provides
a feeling of moral superiority, at first. As time passes
and the pain mounts, the individual becomes aware that,
to some degree, it is his own original determination to
resist that is causing the continuance of pain. There
develops a conflict within the individual between his
moral determination and his desire to collapse and dis-
continue the pain. It is this extra internal conflict, in
addition to the conflict over whether or not to give in
to the demands made of him, that tends to make this
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method of torture so effective in the breakdown of the
individual.
The KGB hardly ever uses manacles or chains,
and rarely resorts to physical beatings. The actual
physical beating is, of course, repugnant to overt
Communist principles, and is contrary to KGB regu-
lations also. The ostensible reason for these regu-
lations is that they are contrary to Communist
principle-s. The practical reason for them is the fact
that the KGB looks upon direct physical brutality as an
ineffective method of obtaining the compliance of the
prisoner. Its opinion in this regard is shared by police
in other parts of the world. In general, direct physical
brutality creates only resentment, hostility, and further
defiance.
It is a general policy that the interrogator must
obtain the written permission of his superiors before
using extreme coercive measures of any sort upon pri-
soners. In actual practice such permission is sought
only if the officer in charge of a case feels that there
is a need for a direct brutal assault. The KGB recog-
nizes that some men who are intensely afraid of phy-
sical assault may break down if beaten once or twice,
and it does use this procedure deliberately, though
uncommonly. Generally speaking, when an interro-
gator strikes a prisoner in anger he does so "unoffici-
ally". The act may be a true expression of his ex-
asperation and evidence that he, himself, is under
emotional strain.
KGB officers report that the use of brutality
in the Russian secret police waxes and wanes in cycles
that recur throughout the years. When feelings of
insecurity develop within those holding power, they
become increasingly suspicious and put great press-
ures upon the secret police to -obtain arrests and
confessions. At such times police officials are in-
clined to condone anything which produces a speedy
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"confession", and brutality may become fairly wide-
spread. Later, when suspiciousness subsides, de-
mands arise for "reform" and the cessation of
"irregular practices" by the secret police.
Regardless of brutality, it can be taken for
granted that some period of intense pressure and coer-
cion will be applied to every prisoner, no matter how
cooperative he tries to be at first. This period of
pressure will be accompanied by expressions of
displeasure and hostility from the interrogator, and
sometimes from the guards also. It appears to be a
working principle of the KGB that no man ever reveals
everything voluntarily. It has been a universal experi-
ence of prisoners of Communist state police that no
matter how much a man tells, he is always pressed
to tell more - in fact, those who talk most are often
the ones who are hounded the longest. Men who
immediately, and without pressure, volunteer all
that they know do not thus allay the suspicions of
their interrogator. Eventually, when their flow of
information runs out, and persuasion yields no
more, they find themselves put through the same
routine of repetitive torture which more recalci-
trant prisoners encounter.
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Section -12: The "Friendly Approach"
The interrogator will continue this pressure
until he feels that the prisoner is nearly at the end of
his rope. At this point he introduces a psychological
gambit which is probably the most successful of any of
the tricks at his command. He suddenly changes his
demeanor. The prisoner, returned once again to an
interrogation session that he expects will be a repe-
tition of torture and villification, suddenly finds that
the entire scene has changed. The interrogation room
is brightly lighted. The interrogator is seated behind
his desk, relaxed and smiling. Tea and cigarettes 4re
waiting on the table. He is ushered to a comfortable
chair. The guard is sent away, and sometimes the
secretary also. The interrogator remarks about his
appearance. He is sympathetic about the discomfort
which he has been suffering. He is sorry that the
prisoner has had such a difficult time. The -interrogator
himself would not have wished to do this to the prisoner
it is only that the prison regulations require this treat-
ment, because of the prisoner Is own stubbornness. "But
let us relax and be friends. Let us not talk anymore
about crimes. Tell me about your family" -- and so on.
The usual line is to the effect that, "After all, I am a
reasonable man. I want to get this business over as
much as you do. This is as tiresome to me as it is to
you. We already know about your crimes; it is a mere
formality for you to write out your confession. Why
.don't we -get it over with so that everything can be
settled and you can be released?"
Prisoners find this sudden friendship and re-
lease of pressure almost irresistible. * Nearly all of
them avidly seize the opportunity to talk about them-
selves and -their feelings, and then go on to talk about
* One former prisoner in a debriefing interview de-
scribed his reaction thus "Well, I went in and there was
a man, an officer. he was. He was alone in the room
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their families. Most of them proceed from this almost
automatically to giving the information which the interro-
gator seeks. Even if they do not provide everything the
interrogator wants at this time, he may continue his
friendly demeanor and the relaxation of pressure for
several more sessions before resuming the old regimen
of torture. But if the prisoner does reveal significant in-
formation and cooperates fully, the rewards are prompt
and gratifying. The interrogator smiles and congratulates
him. Cigarettes are forthcoming. There is a large meal,
often excellently prepared and served; and after this the
prisoner returns to his cell and sleeps as long as he likes,
in any position that he chooses.
in the first place... he asked me to sit down and was very
friendly.. .It was very terrific. I, well, I almost felt
like I had a friend sitting there. I had to stop every now
and then and realize that this man wasn't a friend of mine.
I was - it was, it was - it - I can't tell you how, but it
made a tremendous impression on me...It was almost
like seeing one of my old friends... almost like being
relaxed...I had to extremely careful not to, not to,
just do anything he wanted to do...I also felt as though
I couldn't be rude to him. I don't know why, but I felt
that way. It was much more difficult for me to-well,
I almost felt I had as much responsibility to talk to him
and reason and justification as I have to talk to you
right now. "
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Section 13: The Course of The Interrogation
Such -friendly and rewarding behavior will continue
for several -days--usually as long as the interrogator feels
that a significant amount of new information is being pro-
duced. At this point the prisoner may conclude that his
ordeal is over; but invariably he is disappointed. For as
soon as the interrogator decides that no new information is
being yielded, the regimen of constant pressure and hostile
interrogation is resumed. Again it is carried to the point
at which the prisoner is near breakdown. Again it is re-
laxed, and again the prisoner is rewarded if he cooperates.
In this manner, proceeding with regular steps, alternating
punishment with reward, the prisoner is constantly pressed
to revise and rewrite the protocol until it contains all the
statements which the interrogator desires, and is in a final
form which meets with his approval. * When it has atlast
been agreed upon and signed, the pressure is relaxed "for
good"; but the prisoner continues to live in his cell, and
continues under the threat of renewed pressure, until -such
time as he has been taken before a "court", has confessed,
and has been "sentenced".
Throughout the entire -interrogation period, the
prisoner is under some -form of medical observation.
Prison physicians are familiar with all the effects produced
by KGB procedures, and evidently they are skilled at judging
just how far the various procedures can be carried with-out
killing or permanently damaging the prisoner. Prisoners
who have been beaten have their wounds carefully dressed.
Those who are forced to -stand for long periods of time are
examined periodically during the procedure. Sometimes
the physician intervenes to -call a halt if he feels the pris-
oner is in danger. The unintended death of a prisoner
during the interrogation procedure is regarded as a
serious error on the part of the prison officials.
*If the interrogator is seeking information which has been
withheld, he proceeds in the same manner.
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Section 14: The Psychological Interaction Between
Prisoner and Interrogator
During the interrogation the psychological inter-
action between the prisoner and the interrogator is per-
haps even more important than the physical aspects of
the procedure itself. It has been said that the interro-
gator approaches the prisoner with the assumption that
he is guilty. It is important that we define this state-
ment precisely. It does not mean that the interrogator
is not aware of the "true facts" of the situation but that
he interprets them in the light of Communist ideology.
The KGB officer is a Communist. He has selected this
prisoner from one of the groups of suspects described
earlier. The man was arrested because the KGB,which
represents the Communist State, regarded him as a
menace to the Party or its program. Anyone who is a
menace to the Party is, by definition, guilty of threaten-
ing the security of the Communist State. Ergo, from
the Communist point of view, the man is "guilty". In
other words, the KGB has decided that this man must
be dealt with in some manner, "for the good of the
State." Once the man has been arrested this point is
no longer open to question. This is the true or "esoteric"
meaning of the frequently repeated Communist statement
that "In a Communist state, innocent people are never
arrested." If one accepts their definition of "guilt" and
"innocence", this is indeed a fact.
However, the interrogator frequently does not
know just what specific major "crimes" the man may
have committed. In fact, KGB officers have stated
quite clearly that most of the people whom they arrest
have not really "committed" any specific serious
crimes at all. But they do know that the prisoner has
"committed" some acts which are contrary to the broad
Soviet laws against political crimes, as well as minor
"actual" crimes. Furthermore, experience has taught
them that if they put enough pressure upon the prisoner,
sooner or later they will get him to "confess" to "acts"
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which can be interpreted as a "major crime". Once
this confession has been obtained, the KGB can de-
mand from the "judge" a punishment equivalent to
that which it intended that the prisoner should receive
when it arrested him.
This an be illustrated by an analogy. Let us
suppose that the United States had a secret police sys-
tem that operated on the same principles as the -KGB;
and let us suppose that the secret police decided that
all persons who exhibit Communist sympathies are a
threat to the security of the country and should ipso
facto be imprisoned or executed. An officer might
then receive a -report that a certain citizen was sym-
pathetic to Communism. He might institute a-sur-
veillance of this man and gather a dossier on him.
Soon he would have a list of instances in which this
man had talked to other people of Communist sympa-
thies, and perhaps attended me-etings at which these
people were present. He would also probably obtain
evidence that this man had from time to time violated
traffic laws, made erroneous income tax returns, and
moved without notifying his draft board. The officer
would -then go to his superiors and point out that the
man was of known Communist sympathies, had Commu-
nist associates, and had violated a number of laws. On
this basis, the man would be arrested and interrogated.
At the time of arrest the officer would know that his
victim was by definition an enemy of the state. Under
the pressure of an interrogation procedure such as
that used by the KGB it would be not too difficult to
get the man to admit that he had indeed associated
with people of Communist sympathies, that he had
occasionally made derogatory remarks about the
President, that he had contributed to organizations
on the Attorney General?s subversive list, and that
he had violated the laws of the United States. He
could be made to sign a statement to the effect that
this was treasonable activity which tended to subvert
the U. S. Government. Thereafter, he would be
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liable to punishment for the crime of treason.
Much of the activity of the interrogator can be
looked upon as a process of persuasion. In the words
of a former interrogator, "The primary work of the
interrogator is to convince the prisoner that what he
did was a crime. " Having got the "evidence" from his
informers and from the prisoner, it is up to him to
persuade the prisoner that certain actions which he has
carried out constitute a crime. The prisoner is usually
prepared to admit that the acts have been carried out.
Often as not, he revealed them freely because he did
not consider them to be criminal. It is up to the inter-
rogator to make the prisoner see that these acts do
constitute a serious crime, and acknowledge this by
signing a deposition and making a confession in court
if necessary. The Communist legal system requires
that this be done before a case can be settled.
The fact that the interrogator is a dedicated
Communist makes his task of persuasion somewhat
easier. This is why ideological studies are regarded
as such an important part of the training for interro-
gation. The interrogator approaches the prisoner with
the knowledge that the man is actually a criminal by
Communist definition; and he has a large body of
convenient Communist definitions and rationalizations
to help him in convincing his victim of this. For
example, according to Communist theory, acts are
judged by their "objective effects" rather than by
the motives of those who committed them. Thus, if
a prisoner, through an honest mistake, has damaged
a piece of machinery belonging to the State, he is a
"wrecker". Objectively, he has wrecked an impor-
tant piece of property belonging to the State. The
fact that he did this with innocent motives is not a
consideration. Thus a "mistake", and "accident"
and a "crime" all become the same thing.
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Likewise, according to Communist theory, a
mans acts and thoughts are judged "consequentially".
Thus, if a prisoner is known to have said that the KGB
is too powerful, the fact that he has said this may make
him a "traitor" and "saboteur". The Communist reasoning
is that a man who says that the KGB is too powerful,
believes that it is too powerful and will ultimately -acct
upon this belief. This ultimate act will constitute
sabotage and treason; therefore, the man is a saboteur
and a traitor. Similarly, a man who has friendly
associations with foreign nationals must have some
friendly feeling toward them; foreign governments
are capitalist and imperialist; a man who is friendly
to foreign nationals is giving help to the agents of
capitalist imperialism; therefore, the man is a spy
whether he realizes it or not.
Such peculiar -twists of Communist logic are
difficult for Western prisoners to accept at first.
Usually they object strenuously to these definitions
of "treason", "wrecking", and "sabotage"; but
ultimately, under constant pressure and persuasion,
a prisoner usually agrees to some statement to the
effect that, "By Communist laws I am a spy, " There-
after, there follows further argument and persuasion
-to the effect that a person is judged by the laws of the
country in which the crimes are committed. Ulti-
mately the qualifying phrase is omitted, and the final
deposition contains the simple statement, "I am a
spy. 1,
This final acceptance is also a consequence
of the reduction of critical judgement induced by the
fatiguing and debilitating pressures described earlier.
In some cases the prisoner seriously begins to -doubt
his own memory. This feeling is heightened by his
inability to recall little things like the name-s of the
people he knows very well or the date -of his birth.
The interrogator frequently senses this feeling of
doubt and uncertainty and tries to exploit-it by a
clever line of questioning.
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Many of these KGB officers impress the
prisoner by the sincerity of their dedication to
Communism and its ostensible ideals. The inter-
rogator often displays a patient sympathy which
becomes apparent to the prisoner. His attitude
that, "This is something we must go through with
and neither you nor I can stop until you have co-
operated and signed a proper confession", is to
some extent a genuine attitude. The KGB system
allows for no other solution from the interrogator's
point of view. It is in fact true that the interroga-
tion will have to go on until a proper deposition has
been signed. The prisoner often comes to recognize
this sincerity. Many see that indeed the interrogator
must follow the system, and there is nothing which
he can do about it. Thus, the prisoner, in his need
for companionship, may displace his hostility from
the interrogator to the "system". Many interrogators
genuinely plead with the prisoner to learn to "see the
truth", to "think correctly", and to "cooperate".
The warm and friendly feelings which
develop between the prisoner and the interrogator
may have a powerful influence on the prisoner's
behavior. Not infrequently, the prisoner develops
a feeling that the interrogator is the only warm and
sympathetic person in the hostile and threatening
world in which he exists. If the interrogator rejects
the prisoner or implies that he disapproves of him,
the prisoner may feel bereft. He may blame him-
self for having let the interrogator down or for not
having cooperated with the man who was trying to
help him. His efforts to maintain his good standing
in the eyes of his "friend" become an important
motive for him to seek a rationalization which will
allow him to produce a protocol of the type his
"friend" needs.
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Section 15. The Reaction of the Prisoner to the
Interrogation
The way in which a prisoner reacts to the whole
process of interrogation is to a great extent dependent
upon the manner of man he is, his pre-existing attitudes
and beliefs, and the circumstances -surrounding his
arrest and imprisonment. All prisoners have this in
common: They have been isolated and have been under
unremitting pressure in an atmosphere of hostility and
uncertainty. They all -find themselves in a dilemma at
the time that the interrogation begins. The regimen of
pressure and isolation has created an overall discomfort
which is well nigh intolerable. The prisoner invariably
feels that "something must be done to end this". He
must find a way out. Death is denied to him. Ulti-
mately, he finds himself faced with-the choice of
continuing interminably under the intolerable pressures
of his captors, or of accepting the "way out" which the
interrogator offers. The way out is a rationalization.
It allows the prisoner to meet the demands of his
interrogator by degrees, while at the same time re-
taining within himself some shred of belief that by
his own standards he has not capitulated. With rare
exceptions prisoners always accept this way out,
provided the pressures are sufficiently prolonged
and intense, and the interrogator can appropriately
adjust his persuasiveness.
Various categories of prisoners respond to
different types of persuasion. Persons who have been
life long members of the Communist-party are familiar
with the Communist concept of "crime" and the func-
tions of the KGB. Furthermore, they have all been
trained in the ritual of self-criticism, confession,
punishment, and rehabilitation, which has been part
of Communist _procedure since before the revolution.
Many Communists can rationalize a belief that they
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are actually criminals as specified by the KGB, and
come to see their punishment as necessary for the
good of the State and the Party. To the true party
member, such martyrdom carries with it an air of
triumph.
Those who have studied the Purge Trials of
the old Bolsheviks are convinced that this form of
reasoning was behind their apparently peculiar behavior
at the trials. These men held nothing sacred but the
Party. They had dedicated their lives to the princi-
ple that the Party could do no wrong. They themselves
looked upon deviationists as criminals worthy of the
ultimate punishment. Zinoviev, Kammenev and their
followers knew themselves to be chronic oppositionists.
Lenin had expelled them from the party during the
1917 revolution and had reinstated them after they
had confessed and recanted. In 1927 they had again
been expelled by the party, and temporarily exiled;
they had made abject recantations, and had again
been reinstated. But these men were chronic non-
conformists. In some way, by their attitudes rather
than by any deed, they had continued to be in partial
disagreement with Stalin and other members of the
party leadership. When they were arrested in 1936,
it is said that the NKVD did not have very great
difficulty in convincing them that they were criminals.
They readily agreed to it. There was more difficulty
in convincing them that the good of the party demanded
that they be publicly tried and executed; but after much
tortuous logic they accepted this also. It is said that
the interrogators and prisoners broke down and wept
together when the final agreement was reached. Their
"confessions" before the court contained an exposition
of their crimes of which they were guilty "according
to Communist theory", expressed as if these crimes
had "actually been committed" in the Western or
popular use of the word: whereas they were actually
only "objective" or "consequential" crimes, as defined
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by the Communist theory.
Non-communist prisoners of idealistic beliefs
or socialist sympathies apparently make ready targets
for the logic of the interrogator. Such persons are
usually compelled to agree that the ostensible and
idealistic motives of the Communist Party are "good",
and that those who oppose these ideals are "bad". The
rationalization in this case takes the form of getting
the prisoner to say that the Communist Party has the
same value system that he does. Something which the
prisoner has done is "bad" by his own definition. From
this point the prisoner proceeds through the usual steps
to the ultimate signing of the deposition.
Persons who carry with them strong feelings
of guilt associated with highly organized systems of
moral values likewise become ready targets for the
persuasion of the interrogator. Very few people are
entirely free of guilt feelings, but often such feelings
are found in the highest degree in -those whose objectives
and behavior are beyond reproach. For example, many
-strongly -religious people have a profound sense of sin.
They feel guilty of shortcomings of their own which are
much smaller than those found in most of their fellow
men. They constantly see themselves as transgressing
their own moral code, and in the need of forgiveness
for doing so. Skilled interrogators make use of this.
They point out that many of the ostensible ideals of
Communism are the same as the ideals to which the
prisoner himself subscribes. Since he has trans-
gressed his own code, he is a criminal in Communist
eyes also. It is not hard to show the prisoner many
points at which he has failed to live up to the Christian
code. It is usually not very difficult to create within
him a feeling of guilt about this. From here, it is
also not difficult to get him to agree that because of
his un-Christian acts, he has injured "the people",
whom Christ loved. The Communist party is also
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interested in the welfare of "the people"; therefore, all
the prisoner needs to do is confess that he has sinned
against "the people" and has committed crimes against
them. A confession of "crime against the people" is a
satisfactory confession in a Communist court.
An additional vulnerability of highly moral
people is that they find it difficult to tell a lie under
any circumstances. Priests, for example, often
give aid and comfort to those oppressed by Communist
states. It is not too difficult for the police to find out
about this, and it sometimes is very difficult for the
priest to lie about it when presented with the evidence.
From this point, it is not difficult to persuade the
priest to confess that he has indeed given comfort to
the enemies of the regime.
On the other hand, persons with so-called
sociopathic or psychopathic personalities who have a
few or no moral scruples are vulnerable because they
can be bribed, in a sense, to take the easy way out.
Under pressure they quite readily reveal the informa-
tion they possess and freely implicate their associates.
They readily rationalize the necessity for finding a
"way out" of their situations and have little or no
conflict about deserting any principles which they
were supposed to possess. They need only to see
what the KGB wants in the form of a "confession"
in order to fabricate one without compunction. KGB
officers are not entirely taken in by this lying. They
do not hesitate to use the "confession", but they edit
out the more fantastic parts from the final deposition.
Obviously, persons who are "caught with the
goods" receive short shrift with the KGB interrogator.
If the KGB has uncovered real evidence of espionage,
it is quite likely that sooner or later, with constant
pressure and interrogation, the prisoner will admit
it also. In this instance, the facts of the case are
agreed upon by all concerned, and it only remains to
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to determine the punishment.
The maze in -which -any prisoner finds him-self has
so many ramifications that it is almost impossible for
him to escape from it without signing a protocol and be-
ing convicted. Anything he has done may -be a crime.
He has been adjudged guilty before his arrest. He is
put in a situation of intolerable pressure. It is made
clear to him that his only way out of this situation is
to cooper-ate with the interrogator. He is offered a
reasonable rationalization for doing -so. Sooner or
later under these circumstances, the prisoner and the
interrogator almost inevitably come to an agreement
upon a deposition which satisfies the interrogator. But
not inevitably: there are reported instances of prisoners
who have refused to sign any form of deposition, and
have remained in detention indefinitely, with their cases
still unresolved, or have been tried summarily by an
administrative court of the state police. Those who
have escaped to tell about such experiences are few,
but KGB officers say that it is not a rare occurrence to
encounter a man who refuses to confess properly.
Gomulka resisted the Polish UB. Elizabeth Lermolo, (~`)
a woman who was implicated in the Kirov murder, re-
sisted the NKVD and later escaped. It is alleged that
she remained in detention, with periodic interrogation
from 1936 until 1941, when the Germans overran her
prison and she was released. It is said that she never
signed a deposition. Whether this is a true story or
not is not known. But it is known that of all the millions
who passed through the hands of the NKVD during the
time of the purges, and who have fallen into the hands of
its successors since then, few have escaped without
(*) Lermolo, Elizabeth, Face of a Victim, New
York, Harper and Brothers, 1955.
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signing a deposition which amounted to a confession
of crime, as crimes are defined in Communist
Russia. One former KGB officer stated that "less
than one percent" of prisoners of the KGB fail
to sign a protocol of some sort. The small number
who do not include men seized by mistake" and re-
leased, and others who are liquidated or otherwise
punished even in the absence of a protocol.
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Section 16: The "Trial"
When the prisoner has finally reached the point
of admitting his "crimes", and he and the interrogator
have agreed upon a protocol satisfactory to both of
them; he experiences a profound feeling of relief, which
is sometimes shared by the man who has been question-
ing him. Even though his crime-s may be serious -and
the punishment for them -severe and of unknown degree,
he welcomes a surcease from the unrelenting pressures
and miseries of the interrogation procedure. Whatever
the future may hold for -him, he has for the moment
found a way out of an intolerable situation.
When a satisfactory deposition has been prepared
and signed, the pressures upon the prisoner are custom-
arily relaxed. He is allowed to sleep as long as he
wishes; he may have reading and writing material in his
room. Sometimes he can join with other prisoners in
periods of exercise. His meals improve and his guards
become friendly or even solicitous. ? This easy treat-
ment is continued until he is thoroughly rested and his
health has been restored. Then, in most cases, he is
taken before a "court". The state prosecutor presents
the court with the signed protocol and questions the
prisoner about his crimes. Sometimes a "defense
attorney" is assigned; this man invariably limits him-
self to requesting leniency from the court. The whole
procedure is usually brief and formal. There are no
verdicts of "not guilty". The -function of the judge is
solely that of _presiding over the trial and passing upon
the prisoner a sentence which has usually been agreed
upon beforehand by the prosecutor and the -KGB
officer in charge of the case.
It is this aspect of the proceedings which is
most bewildering to Western observers. It is easy
to understand how prisoners can be tortured into
signing confessions of crimes which they did not
commit, but it is difficult to under-stand why the
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prisoners do not renounce these confessions later at
the public trials.
Beginning with the Purge Trials of the 19301x,
the NKVD and its successors and offspring in Russia,
the Eastern European satellites, and China have pre-
sented the world with a series of public trials at
which the prisoners calmly and seemingly without
coercion make outrageous "confessions" of unbeliev-
able crimes, praise their captors, and ask for the
most severe punishment for themselves. These
prisoners have included important Communist
officials, former NKVD officers, non-Communist
citizens of various categories, and foreigners of
the most diverse, backgrounds. All of these prisoners
were apparently "innocent"; some faced certain death,
and many were profoundly anti-Communist. Men of
the highest calibre and integrity such as Cardinal
Mindszenty, William Oatis and Colonel John Arnold
seemed to have the strongest possible motivations to
resist; but none of them stood up in court and denounc-
ed the confession and his captors. This phenomenon
demands an explanation.
The explanation is available but it is not
simple. It is necessary to examine the proposition
in detail in order to view it in its proper light.
First, it is by no means true that "all
prisoners confess freely at a public trial. " Only
a very small minority of prisoners of the Commu-
nist state police ever appear at a public trial. The
proportion of those tried publicly is exceedingly
small. The information available leads to the
conclusion that the KGB will not expose a prisoner
to a public trial unless it is convinced that he will
go through with his confession as planned. If
there is any doubt about this, no public trial is
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held. * But even with this precaution the KGB is not
infallible. At the Purge Trials several of the pri-
soners tried to recant parts of their confessions.
When a prisoner tried to recant, the prosecutor halted
the examination of that person. Usually, when the man
returned from his cell several days later, he was again
docile and cooperative. In the Bulgarian Trials, for
example, Traicho Kostov repudiated his entire protocol
on two occasions.** Some of these so-called "public
trials" have not actually been public. They have been
carried out in the presence of a select audience while
movies and recordings are made of the prisoner's
words which are later transmitted to the public.
The majority of prisoners do "come to trial",
but these trials are not public. They are held in
camera. The state police are concerned only with
political crimes and espionage. Their prisoners are
tried before "Military Tribunals", which are not
public courts. Those present are only the interro-
gator, the -state prosecutor, the prisoner, the judges,
a few stenographers, and perhaps a few officers of
the court. At such a trial there is no opportunity
for "public protest", -and any protest which is made can
be readily expunged from the record. So far as the
prisoner is concerned, this so-called trial appears -as
* One police official says "Not over 2 or 3%"of
confessions could be used for a public trial.
** Trial of Traicho Kostov and His Group, Sofia,
1949
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nothing more than the next step in his process of imprison-
ment. He has remained entirely in the hands of his
interrogators and guards with access to no one else. When
he finally comes before the court he sees no one new
except the state prosecutor, the judge, and the court
officials. The defense attorney, if one is assigned, shows
not the slightest interest in refuting any of the evidence
in the confession or in establishing a plea of "not guilty".
He never questions the fact that the prisoner is guilty as
charged. Sometimes he asks the judge for lenience; but
not infrequently he informs the court that he is convinced
the prisoner is just as big a monster as the prosecution
says he is and that he cannot bring himself to ask the court
for leniency. The judge likewise shows no interest in the
question of guilt or innocence. He limits himself to
maintaining order in the court and passing sentence. If
the prisoner has any illusions that the prosecutor, the
judge, and the defense attorney are going to allow him
any opportunity to dispute the facts in the case these are
soon dispelled.
By no means do all prisoners receive a trial of
any sort. Those who are stubborn or repeatedly recant
their confessions during the interrogation procedure
will not be trusted even at private trials. Uncooperative
and stubborn prisoners and those who.might make em-
barrassing statements are "dealt with administratively".
For many years the state police have had the right to
carry out administrative trials for any prisoners whom
they do not wish to expose to the usual trial procedure.
These administrative trials consist of simply present-
ing the prisoner to a group of three senior police
officers (the "Troika") who pass sentence immediately
and have it carried out forthwith. These administrative
trials took place within the detention prison. Sometimes
the prisoner was not even present at them; sentence was
passed by the Troika merely upon the basis of the signed
protocol.
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Sometimes the alleged records of these trials were
made public, but generally the fact that such a trial
had taken place was never revealed. For every
Soviet citizen who: has appeared at a public trial
there have been thousands who have been tried only
at private trials by military tribunals, and hundreds
who were dealt with administratively by the police
themselves. Thus, a great number of high Commu-
nist officials, captured German officers, and similar
prisoners who fell into the hands of the Russian secret
police, were not tried at all. So far as the public was
concerned, they merely disappeared.*
* During the last few months there have been press
reports that the right of administrative trial has
been withdrawn from the KGB. It remains to be
seen whether or not this is true.
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Section 17: Public Confessions
If we exclude from consideration all those persons
who are dealt with administratively, two questions re-
main: Why do all of those prisoners who are tried in
private confess almost without exception? Why do some
prisoners confess at public trials where there is actually
some opportunity to make an open denial of guilt?
In response to the question of why prisoners at
private trials confess almost without exception the
following answers can be given:
(1) The setting of the private trial as we have
just described it makes it apparent to the prisoner
that any attempt at recantation is useless.
(2) The prisoner at a private trial is always
under actual threat by the KGB. The officer in
charge of his case has clearly indicated to him that
any attempt to alter or recant any part of his con-
fession will lead to an immediate resumption of the
interrogation-torture regimen. This threat is as
poignant as a cocked pistol. The prisoner has just
finished being carried through torture and interroga-
tion over and over again to the point at which it is
absolutely intolerable to him. He has already decided
that, whatever his sentence may be, he prefers to
receive his punishment rather than to return to the
horrible ordeal through which he has just passed.
(3) Positive feelings and even a warm
relationship between prisoners and their interroga-
ting officers often develop during the interrogation
process, and many prisoners come to trial with
the feeling that, if they attempt to alter their testi-
mony, they will be dishonoring an agreement with
their interrogators.( See Sec. 14, page 47.)
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(4) Finally, it is to be emphasized that in spite
of all of these detriments, some prisoners do recant
at their private trials. The court then decides that
these prisoners have not yet reached a full awareness
of their crimes. They are sent back to the detention
prison, and once again put through the torture-
interrogation regimen. Sooner or later, they learn that
pleas of "not guilty" are not -acceptable in Soviet courts,
and -that they must behave themselves at their trials.
Otherwise, they are indefinitely detained or executed.
In answering the question of why some pri-
soners confess publicly when there is some opportu-
nity for them to renounce their confessions and there-
by embarrass their captors, one must consider the
various categories of those who have been tried in
public. Widely publicized trials are staged by the
Communists only under exceptional circumstances
and always for propaganda purposes. They are care-
fully managed "set pieces" in which every performer
must play his role exactly as prescribed. The KGB
and other Communist police organizations select
the prisoners for these shows with great care.
The first category of those who have made public
confessions are prominent Bolsheviks who have fallen
from grace; Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Bukharin,
Radek and their associates at the time of the great
purges; more recently, Laslo, Rajk in Hungary,
Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria, and Slansky, Clementis
and others in Czechoslovakia. The list is extensive,
but not nearly so extensive as the list of prominent
Communist officials who were liquidated adminis-
tratively.
But why did these confess, who did so? The
old Bolsheviks "confessed" primarily because they
were lifelong, dedicated Communists. They had
committed their lives to -the belief that nothing is
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sacred but the Party, and the Party is always right.
If there be a central point in the Communist creed, it
is this. These men all subscribed to the belief that
opposition to the party line, as expressed by the
party leaders, is a crime. Whatever else they were,
they were "chronic oppositionists", and knew them-
selves to be so. They all subscribed to the Communist
ritual of public self-criticism and punishment. Nearly
all of them had at one time or another publicly criticiz-
ed themselves, and had been punished. Several had
been expelled from the party, not once, but several
times. They all knew themselves to be in opposition
to the Party leadership, and they all felt guilty about
this. In spite of this, they still considered themselves
to be Bolsheviks, and were prepared in principle to
accept any demand which the party might make upon
them, even to the point of death.
All of the evidence points to the fact that the
NKVD, using the interrogation pressure process
which we have described, persuaded these men to
accept the concept that because they were opposed to
Stalin, the leader of the Party, they were wrecking the
Party. As good Bolsheviks, the Party called upon
them to make the ultimate sacrifice by denouncing
themselves and giving up their lives so that the world
could know that opposition to the Party leadership was
both criminal and futile. The "crimes" to which they
confessed publicly were not "actual" crimes in the
Western sense of the term, but were "objective" or
"consequential" crimes which must result from their
opposition according to Communist theory. Ultimate-
ly they made their confessions almost with an air of
triumph, and went to their deaths seeing themselves as
martyrs to the cause to which they had devoted their
lives. Some of them - Krestinsky, for example - had
difficulty, recanted a bit, and defied the prosecutor
briefly; but after a few days of persuasion they resumed
their roles and carried the trial through to its end.
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This behavior on the part of the highly disciplined
and religiously dedicated "old Bolsheviks" is not unusual
in the annals of human behavior. It is not inexplicable that
these men who hated Stalin nevertheless played their roles.,
and went to their deaths for the sake of the Party. The
reader has but to consider how many soldiers, in wars
throughout the course of history, have proceeded to cer-
tain death in response to what they knew to be stupid and
disastrous orders, given by incompetent officers whom
they hated; and how many wives have spent a lifetime in
supporting and defending drunken and brutal husbands,
whom they detested. People dedicated to a cause will
destroy both their lives and their reputation for it. That
Communists will do this we know well from our experience
in this country. The R osenbergs could have escaped death
had they been willing to confess to their espionage and
reveal their contacts, but they refused to do so.
The information available to us about the trials
of the Communists leaders in the Eastern European
satellites indicates that their behavior can be explain-
ed on the same basis as that of the old Bolsheviks.
These trials were not the success that one might assume
from their awesome popular reputation. Rajk confessed
obediently and went to his death like a proper Bolshevik;
but Kostov denounced his accusers and proclaimed his
innocence.' The Polish police never dared to expose
Gomulka to a trial of any sort. Tito defected and
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purged his would be purgers. There have been no truly
public trials since those times. The trials of Slansky
and his colleagues were recorded in private and selected
excerpts of the transcripts were broadcast. Beria and
Abakumov were tried entirely in camera by a military
tribunal.
Another category of those who have confessed
publicly is that group of intellectually or idealistically
motivated people who were thought to be opposed to
Communism, or at least to be non-Communist prior
to their arrest. Most prominent in this group is
Cardinal Mindszenty; also included in this are other
Roman Catholic priests from the satellite countries.
The Mindszenty case is the best known. In
the public mind Mindszenty is the prototype of
"Communist brainwashing". The known facts of his
case are these:
Cardinal Mindszenty came from an old and
aristocratic Hungarian family; he had many friends
among the Hungarian aristocracy and the nobility.
He had always supported the monarchical form of
government. During the period between the wars,
when Hungary was a regency, he had been in favor
of the restoration of the Habsburgs to the Hungarian
throne. He was a man of strong religious convictions,
who held himself as well as others to a high code of
moral conduct. Governmental administrators some-
times found him a difficult man to deal with because
he was inflexible in upholding his moral principles.
During the Second World War he came into
open, conflict with the Nazis, and with the members
of the Hungarian Fascist Arrow-Cross organization;
but these organizations did not dare arrest him be-
cause of his position in the church and because of
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the respect and admiration in which the Roman Catholic
population of Hungary held him. It was partly because
he had become such a symbol of the integrity and inde-
pendence of the church that he was elevated to the
position of Cardinal in 1945.
Cardinal Mindszenty did not hesitate to make
known his opposition to the Communist regime. He
made no attempt -to conceal his sympathy -for many of
those oppressed by it. He maintained his association
with his friends among the former aristocracy. He
gave support and encouragement to those, both inside
and outside of the country, who, he thought, might
end the Communist dictatorship and restore a legal
government. He was arrested in December 1948 after
a propaganda campaign had been carried on against
him for several years. Approximately six weeks
later, he "confessed" at a public trial. A former
Hungarian secret police officer states that the treat-
ment which Cardinal Mindszenty received during his
period of interrogation did not differ in any important
detail from that which is usedby the KGB, which we
have described above. The only drugs which the
Cardinal received were stimulants to keep him awake
during the long hours of interrogation, and possibly
sedatives to allow him to sleep when he was exhausted.
There is no reason to believe that any new, esoteric or
unknown method was used in handling him and no need
to assume that there was.
Cardinal Mindszenty's confession is published
in the Hungarian Yellow Book. (*) In his published
(*) Documents on the Mindszenty Case, edited by
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depositions he acknowledges that he is a royalist, that
he had favored the restoration of the monarchy, and
that he had hoped that the international situation would
develop in a way which would cause the United States
to intervene and allow the monarchy to be restored.
He agrees that he had continued to communicate with
his monarchist friends, both in Hungary and abroad,
and with various American authorities. He agrees
that he was hostile to the Communist Regime. "It
was in the interests of this that I did everything to
support American politics in Hungary, partly by my
activity against the Hungarian Republic, and partly
by constantly urging their interference, by a regular
service of facts, and by espionage. " This sentence,
translated by Hungarian Communists, is typical of
those found in Communist depositions; it can equally
well be interpreted to mean that Mindszenty had
committed espionage (in the Communist sense of
the word) or that he had urged the Americans to
make known the facts and to commit espionage. The
"facts" in the Yellow Book, even if accepted at face
value, reveal the Cardinal to have been a Hungarian
patriot and a vigorous anti-Communist, but not a spy.
Cardinal Mindszentyrs trial was "public", but
not all of his statements were broadcast. The broad-
cast portions were cut, evidently at points where he
made significant reservations. But even so, his
widely publicized confession was no declaration of
profound guilt. At his trial Cardinal Mindszenty
stated that he recognized that some of his activities
had been contrary to the laws of the Communist
state. He stated that he was sorry he had violated
the laws. If his actions had in any way harmed the
people of Hungary or the Roman Catholic Church,
he asked forgiveness for this. He agreed that he
would be willing to step aside as leader of the
Hungarian Church if this would be in the best in-
terest of the people and the church.
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On the basis of this confession the Communists
convicted him of being a "reactionary criminal" and of
taking part in a "treasonable monarchist plot" to -secure
United States intervention and to -overthrow -the -govern-
ment of Hungary. He was -sentenced to life imprisonment.
A third category of those who are thought of as
having "confessed publicly" were Noel and Hermann
Field. The Fields were men with Communist sym-
pathies whose presence in Poland and Hungary was
entirely the result of their going to Eastern Europe
in order to have a first hand look at the new "Peoples'
Democracies". In 1954, Hermann Field was released
by the Poles with the statement that his arrest had been
a mistake. He then went to Switzerland. He described
the events of his imprisonment but has never publicly
expressed complaints against the Communist state
that arrested him. A "confession" by Noel Field was
published by the Hungarians at the time of the Rajk
trial. After his release from prison, Noel was seen
in a sanitarium by a representative of the U.S. Embassy,
.but he elected to stay in Hungary. The performance of
both of these men is typical of that of Communist sym-
pathizers who are arrested by Communist secret police.
They continue to defend the regime and "understand"
their arrests in terms of Communist logic.
Still a fourth category of those who have con-
fessed publicly are various foreign businessmen, news-
papermen and military men who were arrested or
captured in the course of their routine duties, of whom
Robert Vogeler in Hungary, and William Oatis in
Czechoslovakia are -examples.
In all of these case-s, the following factors
are evident:
(1) The confessions made by the prisoner-s
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were "actually true" in the sense that some of the
specific acts described in the confessions actually
occurred.
(2) The interpretation put upon these acts was
the Communist interpretation.
(3) The prisoner had been brought to agree that
in the country in which he was arrested the Communist
laws applied and, therefore, these acts constituted a
crime. The prisoner, therefore, pleaded guilty to
"crimes" which were "crimes" by Communist
definition, but which he had not intended as crimes or
considered to be crimes at the time that he. carried
them out. This qualification, however, was missing
from the statements made by the prisoners at the
trials.
(4) All of these prisoners were under the threat
of renewed interrogation-torture if they recanted or
changed their confessions.
(5) Many of them had the actual or implied
promise as well as the firm belief that they would be
released if they cooperated with the police.
(6) Furthermore, all of them were able to
rationalize that their confessions would not be
believed by Americans in any case. This rationaliza-
tion was essentially a correct one - their confessions
were widely disbelieved in the United States; but in
some other areas of the world their confessions are
accepted as factual.
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S E C R E T
The period of interrogation and detention, no
matter how long and terrible it may be, is not consider-
ed imprisonment. The punishment begins only after the
sentence has been passed. Sometimes a "lenient" judge
will allow the prisoner to count his period of detention
as a part of a prison sentence, but often this period is
discounted altogether. According to Communist
standards , the purpose of prison systems is to rehabili-
tate criminals through wholesome work, productive
activity, and education. For this "purpose" prisoners
are transported to Siberia or the Arctic where most of
them spend their terms working in mines and construction
projects under brutal and primitive conditions. Those
who are fortunate enough to receive any education during
this procedure are educated by further indoctrination
with Communist ideas.
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PART III
PRACTICES IN COMMUNIST CHINA
Section 1: A Comparison of Chinese Methods with
Those of the KGB
The methods used by the state police in China
are basically similar to those used by the KGB, but
they are not "carbon copies" like those of the Eastern
European satellites. They are different in several
important details:
(1) The goal of the KGB detention and interrogation
procedure is the preparation of a protocol upon which
a suitable punishment can be based, so that the KGB
can then deal with the prisoner according to its precon-
ceived idea of what must be done for the good of the
Party and the Soviet State. In a minority of cases, this
includes a public trial for propaganda purposes. The
KGB does not appear to be greatly concerned about the
future attitudes and behavior of the prisoner, so long as
he behaves properly during the period of trial and sen-
tencing.
The &oal of the Chinese detention and interrogation
procedure, on the other hand, is primarily that of in-
suring that the prisoner will develop a relatively long
lasting change in his attitudes and overt behavior, which
will be sustained after his release., so that he will not
again constitute a danger to the Communist state.
The official regulations for Chinese detention prisons
include the following statement: "In dealing with the
criminals, there shall be regularly adopted measures
of collective study classes, individual interviews,
study of assigned documents, and organized discussion,
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The securing of information by interrogation, the
preparation of proper protocols and "confessions",
and the participation of the prisoners in public
propaganda trials, are secondary to this primary
goal. #*
(2) Unlike the KGB, the Chinese make ex-
tensive use of group interaction among prisoners,
in obtaining information, applying pressures, and
in carrying out indoctrination. The extraordinarily
potent effects of the Chinese "group cell" are unpar-
alleled by any Western procedure.
(3) Whereas in the Soviet Union and the
satellites the ritual of public self-criticism, con-
fession, self-degradation, punishment, and rehabil-
itation is a party procedure confined to Communists,
the Chinese have extended this.. practice to the non-
party population, and to the prison population in
particular, and have made it an important feature of
their indoctrination procedure.
to educate them in the admission of guilt and
obedience to law, political and current events,
labor production, and culture, so as to expose
the nature of the crime committed, thoroughly
wipe out criminal thoughts, and establish a new
moral code. " Quoted in "Reform through Labor
of Criminals in Communist China", "Current
Background 293, American Consulate General",
Hong Kong September 15, 1954.
The carefully prepared and provocative review and
formulation (A&E Staff/OTR) entitled Brainwashing -
A Psychological Viewpoint made a point of separating
"elicitation" and "indoctrination" in the Chinese
procedures. For analytic purposes this may be a
useful distinction, but in practice the two are merged
and the process must be viewed as a whole.
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(4) In China, at the moment at least, the period
of detention is greatly prolonged. * Whereas in the
Sovie-, t-Union trial and sentencing take place fairly
soon after the completion of the interrogation and
the preparation of a suitable protocol, in China the
preparation of a first confession is only a prelude
to a -long period of indoctrination and re-education,
which may go on for years, and is not terminated
until those in charge of the prisoner believe that he
has finally adopted a "correct" attitude and behavior.
It is only then that the "trial", the "sentencing" and
the formal term of imprisonment or other punishment
begins.
(5) Procedures in China are much less standardized
than those in Russia, and many variations upon them
can be expected. This in part may be the result of the
newness of the Chinese Communist regime, and the
lack of homogeneity of its personnel and facilities.
The Chinese procedures are not, however, a
recent innovation. They accompanied the development,
prior to the Communist takeover, of a centralized
and efficient secret police system similar to that
of the Soviets. They also reflect certain aspects of
Chinese teaching methods as applied to the particular
requirements of the relatively long Communist
revolution in China.
* At the present time, it is impossible to determine
accurately whether this prolongation is by accident
or design. There is some evidence to support the
contention that the prolonged period is due to the
inefficiency of the authorities in bringing a case to
a speedy conclusion. This inefficiency appears to
be largely the result of back logs and inexperienced
personnel.
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For example, in the years from 1936 to 1946,
while the Chinese Communists were busy expanding
and recruiting new members from the general
Chinese population, they gradually developed a
highly organized and vigorous indoctrination program.
It was aimed at all potential recruits who
happened to fall into their hands. Uneducated
peasants, city workers, captured KMT troops, and
interested students from the Universities were
subjects for this indoctrination. In order to
create in this heterogeneous group a feeling of
comradeship and identification with the peasant
Communists, it was necessary to make them
"cut their ties to the past". Therefore, the
training program included a deliberate assault
upon all of the traditional "bourgeois", "reactionary",
"upper class" attitudes, beliefs and practice-s the
recruits brought with them. Trainees were forced
to abandon their refinements of speech, manner
and behavior, -their reverence for family ties and
worldly goods, and to adopt the crude and earthly
attitudes and behavior of the new "people's army."
This questioning and discussion of behavior and
value systems was accompanied by the inculcation
of enthusiasm for the Communist movement built
around the ideal of the rejuvenation of China. The
combination of Communist practices, such as
public confession and self-criticism, with tradi-
tional Chinese methods of learning by rote and
repetition resulted in a highly effective method of
persuasion. These methods, as applied to the
general population following the success of the
revolution in 1949, have been referred to as methods
of "thought reform" or "ideological reform" and,
as we have seen, these phrases were finally
transferred into English under the generic term of
"brain washing". *
The term "brainwashing" is not used by the
Chinese, and should be avoided in intelligence
documentation, for it has no precise meaning.
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The Chinese have shown great skill in the
development of these methods and their applica-
"
tion but like the Russians they developed their
methods by trial and error, through practice.
There' is no evidence that psychologists, neuro-
physiologists, or other scientists participated
in their development.
It should be pointed out that most individuals
studied who have undergone Chinese procedures,
did so during this period of trial and error. It
is significant, that one aspect of "acceptance"
of Communist ideals among some in this group
was due to the changes that took place during
their imprisonment. In 1951 the prison system
was still chaotic and plagued with inadequate
facilities and limited personnel. As some of these
problems were administratively dealt with,
conditions in the prisons improved. With this
improvement there was concurrent emphasis
propaganda-wise that Communism was "improving"
China as a whole. The prison improvement,
which was within the immediate experience of the
prisoner, was accepted as proof of the greater
claim. Thus, by accident, two contemporaneous
events not necessarily intentionally designed by
the Communists combined to produce a signif-
icant attitude in the prisoner.
For example, the introduction of the "lenient
policy" (see pp. following) is described by all
The Chinese phrase is "Szu hsing K'ai Tsao"
which means "ideological reform". It is some-
times shortened to "K'ai Tao" or "reform".
As pointed out in the OTR document "Brain-
washing - A Psychological Viewpoint" the term
as us ed in the popular press applies to a variety
of phenomena.
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released prisoners as one of the most effective
measures for inducing favorable attitudes toward
Communism. This "leniency", characterized
by gradual improvement in prison conditions, has
been interpreted by some observers as one stage
in a calculated master-plan for "brainwashing".
In fact, however, what occurred was an exploita-
tion by the interrogators of a general improvement
in bureaucratic organization, one aspect of which
was more efficient prison management.
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S E C R E T
Section 2: The Suspects, Investigation, and Arrest
In China, as in the Soviet Union, those whom
the party decides are a threat to its program auto-
matically fall into the category of suspects. General
categories of suspects include: People of "bourgeois"
or "reactionary" class background, which includes the
"official" class, the rural gentry, and the business
and commercial classes of the cities; foreigners, and
especially all of those of Western European or Ameri-
can background, and all Christians, especially Roman
Catholics, are suspect. As in Russia, there are
"specific" suspects as well as general categories
of suspects: Persons who are the associates and
relatives of other suspects, persons about whom
police spies and informers have reported deroga-
tory information, and persons who have been
accused of acts or attitudes which threaten the
party or any of its programs. In China, as in
Russia, nearly anyone in the population may be-
come a suspect, and when he is arrested the
police always have some reason for making the
arrest, whether or not this is apparent to the
victim.
Observations of the investigation methods suggest
that they are similar to those used by the KGB. From
the point of view of the victim, however, the Chinese
investigation procedures do not appear to be as
prolonged and comprehensive as those of the KGB
and the prospective victim may have much less
opportunity to get wind of what is afoot. This is
largely due to the fluid state of Chinese society.
As Communism is being implemented in a non-
Communist area, the number of "reactionaries"
and "state enemies" is necessarily extensive
and call for rapid action. As the society
stablizes more careful methods are demanded.
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As in Russia, the arrest procedure is usually
carried out suddenly; but-the Chinese apparently
make no pretense at carrying ouj their arrests
covertly. Often they make a large show of force.
The' arresting authorities may drive up in a
truck with a squad of heavily armed soldiers,
surround the home of the victim and cart him off
with much military ceremony. If there is a
desire to impress. the populace, the arrest may
be staged in broad daylight under humiliating
circumstances. The arresting officers do some-
times read a "warrant" to the victim. As in
Russia, this warrant does not name specific crimes
but only_general ones. The victim is given only
a few moments to gather together the barest of
his personal essentials before being taken away.
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Section 3: Chinese Prison Routine
Usually the prisoner is taken first to a police
station, where he is immediately interrogated
by several police officers. This initial interrog-
ation is relatively brief and takes the form of an
accusation. Usually, it is carried out by three
officers in full uniform. Their demeanor is
invariably arrogant and hostile. * As in Russia,
they never state specific crimes, but they tell
the prisoner that he is accused of "crimes
against the people", "treason", "espionage", or
some similar broad category of malefaction.
Sometimes they simply state to him that he knows
why he is there, and what has he to say for himself.
Usually this initial shouting and accusatory
interrogation is a brief one, and the prisoner is
promptly placed in a cell. However, for psy-
chological reasons and be cause of lack of prison
facilities, some prisoners are put under "house
arrest" immediately after their initial arrest.
A single room in the prisoner' s home is fixed
up as a cell, and guards are assigned. The
prisoner stays in this room for an indefinite
period of time, and is transported back and forth
to the prison for further interrogations (which
the prisoners often call "trials".) Under standard
conditions, however, the prisoner is confined
immediately to a prison cell, and usually goes
through an initial period of solitary confinement.
Chinese prison facilities are much more
primitive than many of those in Russia and are
*This is particularly true with Caucasians and is
probably a manifestation of defensiveness against
the so-called class status of the white man in the
east.
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 S E C R E T
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utterly inadequate to the prison population which
they must at present sustain. Crude, improvised,
and extremely primitive prison conditions are
often encountered.
The Chinese prisons, like the Soviet prisons,
are separated into "detention prisons" (often
called "Detention Houses") where prisoners are
kept during the period of "investigation" up to
the time the cases are "settled", and "punishment
prisons" and labor camps in which sentences are
-served. The "detention prisons" in large cities
are modeled along the lines of the Soviet detention
prisons.
In important cases, when there is a need to
elicit a -good deal of accurate information from
the prisoner, the Chinese utilize a routine of
isolation, pressure and interrogation, which is
almost identical with that used by the KGB, and
described in Part II. The prisoner is placed in
a small and barren cell in total isolation. His
food, his sleep, his exercise, his position, his
activities, -and even his eliminative functions are
rigidly controlled. After a suitable initial
period he is interrogated nightly with increasing
pressure until he capitulates. Usually his cell
is dirtier and less well heated than those in
Russia, and his regimen is different in details,
some minor and some major. In China, for
example, prisoners in isolation may be required
to sleep with their hands inside the blankets rather
than outside. The Chinese have a predilection
for severely restricting the activities of their
prisoners. It seems to be much more common for
them to require men in total isolation to sit
rigidly on their bunks at all times when they are
not eating, sleeping or exercising. This adds
greatly to their discomfort.
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An aspect of their isolation regimen which
is especially onerous to Western prisoners is
the arrangement for the elimination of urine
and feces. The "slop jar" that is usually present
in Russian cells is absent in China. It is a
Chinese custom to allow defecation and urina-
tion only at one or two specified times each
day--usually in the morning after breakfast.
The prisoner is hustled from his cell by a
guard, double-timed down a long corridor, and
given approximately two minutes to squat over
an open Chinese latrine and attend all of his
wants. The haste and the public scrutiny are
especially difficult for women to tolerate. If
the prisoners cannot complete their action in
about two minutes, they are abruptly dragged
away and back to their cells. The guards
customarily allow only this one opportunity
for defecation, but they may allow one or more
other opportunities to urinate during the day.
All Western prisoners experience extreme
discomfort and marked disturbances of bowel
function when first exposed to this regimen.
Many of them think of it as one of the most
fiendish tortures devised by the Chinese Com-
munists; but the practice may simply be an old
routine which has been customary in China for
many years.
Similarly, the diet in Chinese prisons is
often regarded by Western prisoners as a device
for creating discomfort. Rice, millet and bean
soup are the staples. As in Soviet prisons,
these are presented to the prisoner in an amount
just sufficient amount to maintain his nutrition
if he eats all that he is given. Some Western
prisoners regard Chinese prison food as nau-
seating or distasteful and suffer accordingly.
However, there is reason to believe that the
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Chinese Communists intend to provide in their
prisons a diet equivalent to that of an average
Chinese peasant or soldier.
The chief features of the isolation regimen
in China are the same as_those of the Soviet
Union: total isolation, utter boredom, anxiety,
....... ....
uncertainty, fatigue, and lack of sleep, rejection,
hostile treatment, and intolerable pressure,
alternating with periods of relaxation of pressure,
and reward and approval for compliance.
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Section 4: Interrogation
The interrogation in Chinese prisons is
sometimes carried out by two or three officers;
but usually one of these is in charge of the case,
and it is he who acts as the "friendly" interrog-
ator at times when pressure is released. As
in Russia, there may be only one interrogator, and
sometimes two interrogators alternate. These
men are relatively junior officers. Like their
KGB counterparts, many of them are dedicated
Communists; they may approach the prisoner
with a set of pre-formed ideas which are im-
pervious to logic. Some Chinese interrogators
are University graduates, and some of them have
studied abroad; but many others are men whose
limited education has been entirely in Communist
party schools.
On the whole, Western prisoners have reported
that one of the most persuasive features of Com-
munist Chinese interrogators is their evident
devotion to their cause, and the enthusiastic
idealism with which they subscribe to the osten-
sible goals oi'Communism. Their patient attempts
to teach prisoners "the right attitude" and to get
them to understand the Chinese Communist view-
point has a potent effect upon unsophisticated or
idealistic people. At the same time, the relative
ignorance of some of these police officers and
their dogmatic adherence to Communist beliefs
in the face of obviously contrary facts may be
profoundly exasperating. Under the pressures of
interrogation, prisoners are usually prepared to
admit to acts which actually occurred and in
time to accept the Communist definition of the
nature of these acts; but they have great difficulty
in bringing themselves to make confessions which
are wildly contrary to fact. The interrogator may
insist upon such confessions because of his erroneous
beliefs about the nature of Western institutions and
Western motives. This may in part explain why
S E C R E T
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protocols are rewritten so many times in Com-
munist prisons, and why confessions are so often
rejected-as unsatisfactory after the pris-oner
thinks that he has finally written them in acceptable
form.
The interrogation procedure is much the same
as that used by the KGB. It is usually carried out
at night and in a special room; it proceeds step-
wise with a gradual building up of pressure upon
the -prisoner to an intolerable point, sudden release
of pressure, friendly interrogation, rewards for
cooperation, and then a repetition of the whole
process until a presumably satisfactory first protocol
is signed. As in the Soviet Union, the Chinese in-
terrogators adjust their attitudes to the type of man
with whom they think they are dealing. They are
more likely-to shout, revile, and humiliate.
Possibly they take this attitude more toward Western
prisoners than toward members of their own
populace. Their procedures seem to be less_for-
malized, and their pressures are more apt to be
primitive and brutal. Important or recalcitrant
prisoners are usually interrogated during a period
of isolation in a detention cell, under a routine
similar to that used in Russia. Less important
prisoners may be interrogated while incarcerated
in "group cells".
In addition to the procedure of long continued stand-
ing (which is frequently used), the Chinese also use
manacles and leg chains, devices which are no longer
used by the KGB. Leg chains are hobbling and un-
comfortable; but the most excruciating discomfort
is produced by the manacles. These are commonly
in the form of iron bracelets, several inches in
width, and joined rigidly together. The prisonerts hands
are placed behind his back, and his wrists are locked
within the manacles. The rigid joint of the manacles
holds his forearms together side by side, tightly be-
hind his back. This position is a painful -one to assume
for even a few moments. When the man's arms are held
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in this position for many hours, he develops al-
most unbearable pain, primarily in his shoulders
and hands. The circulation to his hands is in-
terfered with also. They become swollen and
exceedingly tender. The manacles may cut into
his wrists and produce wounds which become in-
fected. The Chinese may manacle a prisoner for
days or weeks at a time. Such a prisoner is
helpless and degraded. In order to eat, he must
lie on the floor and lap up his food. He cannot
urinate or defecate without help, and frequently
he soils himself. He cannot find a comfortable
position for sleep. Lying on either side causes
pain in the shoulders and lying on his back is im-
possible because of tenderness of his hands.
Chinese interrogators and prison guards are
more likely to resort to direct physical brutality
than their Russian counterparts. One KGB
officer, when asked to explain the difference
between Chinese methods and those of the KGB,
said simply, The Chinese use torture". This
is the exception rather than the rule in their
behavior, but nevertheless it occurs. Angry
interrogators may slap or beat prisoners and
kick them in the shins. Guards may do likewise.
Among their most sadistic practices are milking
the swollen fingers of manacled prisoners and
binding the ankles of those who are forced to
stand, thereby producing intense pain. It is
relatively more common, however, for the Chinese
to encourage other prisoners to be brutal towards
fellow prisoners. Beating, kicking and slapping is
common when Caucasian prisoners are placed in
"groups" with Chinese prisoners.
As in Russian prisons, medical attention is
given prisoners. This is not intended to be in-
adequate, but it is usually grossly so by Western
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standards. Some Chinese physicians likewise
are skilled in estimating the capacity of
prisoners to withstand punishment, and usually
call a halt to tortures before death or irreparable
physical damage occurs.
But the content of the -interrogation procedure
is not only the tortures which are -applied. As in
Russia, the persuasion and di-scus-sion of the in-
terogato r, wh ii-c1 seems to provide a "way out"
for the risoner, is an essential tool in producing
the desired confession.
The Chinese more frequently ask the prisoner
to write out, rather than relate, his own biography,
and often require him to revise it in detail. The
interrogation se-ssions themselves can be taken
up with the discussion of this biographic material,
but only rarely is the biography itself obtained by
direct questioning. All of the psychological
devices used by the KGB interrogators are also
used by the Chinese interrogators. Night in-
terrogation, with repetitive questioning, undefined
crimes, changing attitudes and increasing pressures,
alternate with periods of relaxed pressure, "friend-
ship" and reward. Cigarettes, tea and a friendly
attitude may be the sum total of a reward for
cooperation; but even this provides profound relief
from the usual interrogation procedures.
The KGB rarely requires a prisoner?to fabricate
a completely untrue act which is logically absurd.
They concentrate more upon persuading him that
his actual acts constitute crimes. Chinese interrog-
ators on the other hand, when they are intent upon
establishing charges such as bacteriological warfare
or espionage, may insist that the prisoner include
in his confession detailed statements which are not
only untrue, but logically absurd. One has the im-
pression that this insistence is based upon a
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combination of ignorance and ineptitude. Prisoners
usually balk at making such statements, and tend
to retract them even after they have been made. *
This seems to produce a profound exasperation in
many interrogators. It is in such settings that
much brutality occurs. Men have been kicked,
beaten, starved, locked up in small boxes, hung
up by their thumbs op legs, or subjected to other
primitive tortures under these circumstances.
This has happened especially in POW interrogations.
Persuasion and friendly discussion nevertheless
play a major part in the preparation of the original
confession. The same types of rationalization are
used by the Chinese as are used by the KGB, and
the peculiar forms of Communist logic are common
to both.
A person who has finally been forced into
making an absurd confession will sometimes
accept the confession after the most absurd
parts have been deleted, even though the
remaining protocol is patently untrue.
S E C R E T
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Section 5: The Indoctrination Procedure in the
Group Cell*
At the time the first protocol or "confession"
is signed, the prisoner is usually sullen and only
half convinced, if at all. It is at this point that
the Chinese procedure diverges radically from
that of the other Communist countries. The
Chinese are less interested in immediate trial
and punishment; they are more concerned with
reforming the prisoner's thoughts and acts.
At some stage in his imprisonment the prisoner
can expect to find himself placed in a cell with
about eight other prisoners. If he was initially
isolated and interrogated, this may be shortly
after his first "confession" is accepted; but many
prisoners are placed in group cells from the
outset of their imprisonment. The cell is usually
barren, and scarcely-large enough to hold the
group it contains. There may be bunks, but
more often all of the prisoners sleep on the floor,
and when all -lie down, every inch of floor space
may be taken up. The atmosphere is extremely
intimate. Privacy is entirely non-existent. Poor
food and all of the other hardships of the prison
routine are present, and a new extraordinary
hardship is added as well: the psychological
atmosphere among the prisoners.
In societies which require a rigid conformity
of,belief and provide severe punishment for
deviation, periods of great fear may be accompanied
by widespread hysterical accusations and brutal
punishments.
# An excellent description of the atmosphere within
the Chinese group cell may be found in Chinese
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This has been an outstanding feature of the
present Communist Revolution in China. Under
the pressures of the Communist demands for
conformity and the fear of relentless punishment,
men have turned against men, and children
against their parents. People compete with
each other to demonstrate their loyalty to the
new regime, and freely accuse their neighbors
of deviations or suspected crimes. The
Chinese Communists have fostered this pressure
among the general population and use it for
their own ends. Certainly, they do so in the
prisons. One of their most ingenious prison
devices is that of turning prisoner against
prisoner, and requiring the enemies of the
regime to beat each other into conformity.
During his original interrogation, as he is
urged to confess his crimes, the prisoner is
told repeatedly that only when he has completely
confessed his crimes and has come to realize
tie'' error of his ways can his case be settled.
After he transferred to a cell with other
prisoners, it becomes clear to him what this
entails. It is necessary for him to compete
with other prisoners in studying, in thoughts,
Communist "Thought Reform": I Confession-
Extraction and "reeducation" in Penal
Institutions by Robert J. Lifton, MD - to be
published.
In justice, it should be pointed out that the
Communists have been less successful in
forming Group Cells made up exclusively
of non-Chinese. Where the methods
described hereafter were most successful
was where the prisoner was relatively fluent
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and in behavior until he has demonstrated to them,
as well as to his jailors, that he is thoroughly
"reformed" and a true adherent of Communism.
The regimen in the new cell is completely
organized. The prisoners arise at a fixed hour
have a brief period for cleaning themselves,
eat a frugal breakfast, and have the usual march
to the latrine. Thereafter, they spend the morning
in lectures, discussion sessions, and brief
exercise periods. They spend the afternoon in the
same sort of routine - more lectures, more
discussions and self-criticism sessions. In the
evenings, the discussions and self-criticism go
on continuously until bedtime.
The lectures are relatively formal study
sessions given by an instructor, who is either
a member of the prison staff or a prisoner
who is further along in his indoctrination.
The textbooks are the standard books of
Marxist theory. * The lecturer assigns topics
in Chinese, and was placed in Group Cells
with Chinese prisoners. However, Group
Cells were formed of non-Chinese prisoners
on several occasions with varying degrees
of success.
For Example:
("The Communist Manifesto"; "Socialism-
Utopian and -Scientific"; "Imperialism-the
Highest Stage of Capitalism"; "Foundations
of Leninism"; "The History of Social Develop-
ment"; Leontiev' s "Political Economy "; "The
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union")
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S E C R E T
for reading in these books. These are later on
taken up in "discussion sessions". Such group
discussions of general topics are designed to
assure that everyone understands what he is
being taught. On each point it is necessary
for everyone in the group to come to precisely
the same understanding, which is the one that
meets with the approval of the teacher and the
more thoroughly indoctrinated students. These
sessions are held in the cell. Everyone is
forced to participate. Attempts at nonpartic-
ipation are noticed immediately by the other
prisoners, who then insist upon an expression
of an opinion from the recalcitrant member
and a thorough discussion and dissection of his
views. Prisoners and instructors are equally
assiduous at ferreting out other standard devices
for avoiding commitment, such as platitudinous
statements, or the mere parroting of the words
of the instructors and the group without conviction.
Prisoners who attempt to escape by the use of
such maneuvers find themselves set upon by the
other students and sharply criticized for their
insincerity.
The exercise period is like that in Soviet
prisons. During the earlier phase of indoc-
trination it usually consists of walking in the
prison yard or doing calisthenics. At later
stages, more advanced prisoners are permitted
to play games such as volley ball or baseball.
Further lectures and more group discussions
take place in the afternoon. In addition, there
are the "self-criticism" sessions, during which
each prisoner is supposed to criticize his
behavior in the light of proper Communist behav-
ior, and to admit all of his faults. Not only one's
present failures but all of one's past actions are
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subject to review. The biographical material
from each prisoner's life history is available,
and sooner or later he must review most of
the items. Furthermore, all prisoner-s must
take part in vigorous criticism of other
prisoners. One is not allowed to criticize
vaguely or lightly. One must criticize specific
points and criticize them forcefully. The
result of this is an intense outpouring of hostile
accusations upon the prisoner who is the recip-
ient of the criticism. The hostility of the group
grows in intensity and continues until the
uncommitted prisoner shows a genuine emotional
reaction that indicates a satisfying willingness
to reform.
A special aspect of the group criticism is
what prisoners call "the struggle". This takes
place when prisoners arej undergoing interrog-
ations while being confined to group cells. The
cell group is made aware of the progress of the
interrogation, apparently by direct instructions
from the jailors to the group leader. When the
prisoner returns fatigued after an interrogation
session , the group surrounds him and "struggles"
to help him with his confession. They stand
around him in a group, shouting at him, reviling
him, and accusing him for hours at a time,
constantly telling him that he must confess all
in order to be treated better. Such "struggles"
are often initiated when a prisoner -returns
from an interrogation session wearing manacles
and leg chains as a sign of his unsatisfactory
performance. When the prisoner finally produces
a satisfactory confession and the interrogator
changes his attitude, the cell group is made
aware of this also, and changes its attitude toward
the prisoner to a milder one.
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Another technique frequently used is that of
stopping all interrogations and instructions
for a period of days, and ordering the prisoner
to concentrate upon writing his confession and
self-criticism. During this time, he is not
allowed to speak to anyone in his cell, and his
cellmates do not speak to him.
This routine of lectures, discussions, self-
criticism, and group criticism goes on from
morning until evening throughout the week. The
formal lectures alone may occupy as much as
56 hours a week. Literally no part of the
prisoner's waking life is left free.
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Section 6: The Reaction of the Prisoner to the
Procedure in the Group Cell
Whether by design or by accident, the psy-
chological atmosphere within one of these group
prison cells is such that ultimately the prisoner
comes to see that the only hope for a "solution
to his case" lies in his complete conformity in
speech and behavior to the doctrine outlined by
his jailors. He also learns that he must dem-
onstrate his zeal not merely by his own behavior,
but also by vigorously tearing down the defenses
of many other prisoners. Fear and tension in the group
are thus maintained at a high pitch, and the cell
hates vie with each other in accusing, criticizing,
egrading, and brutally punishing their fellow
prisoners.
A prisoner newly introduced into one of
these cells finds himself faced with an almost
irresistible assault upon the integrity of his
personality. Often he is already tired, discour-
aged, and psychologically whipped by the previous
extraction of a "confession". Furthermore, he is
usually somewhat confused about his value systems,
-and at least partly convinced that, by Communist
standards, he is a criminal. He enters the cell
as s. newcomer and an unregenerate. He finds that
his cellmates are all people who have "changed
their -attitudes". Regardless of their status prior
to arrest, they all seem to regard themselves
as criminals; some take pride in the fact that they
were the worst criminals in the lot. He may be
surprised to find that the cell leader who ha-s charge
of the discussion and criticism sessions is a former
Nationalist officer, or possibly a priest, or a
former high Communist official.
The new prisoner's protestations of innocence
are not accepted by his fellow prisoners. They
derisively tell him that he will soon change. They
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all tell him that resistance is useless, that the
Communist party is all powerful, and that no
one 'who is innocent is ever imprisoned. They
promptly turn upon him and begin to "help him"
in his reform. They criticize him vigorously
and brutally. They point out every error in
his thinking. They detect his every attempt to
evade commitment and destroy it. (*) They do
not allow protestation of innocence. Thence-
forth, he has no moment of peace and no shred
of privacy.
The brutalities of prisoners to other prisoners
are far more frequent than those of the guards.
This is another interesting example of Communist
legalism. The Chinese, like the KGB, have a
regulation that prisoners shall not be tortured,
beaten, or otherwise maltreated. Usually the
interrogator and guards follow this rule. They
leave physical brutality to the prisoners them-
selves. Amid the tensions of the Group Cell,
prisoners can revile and degrade their fellow
prisoners to an unbelievable degree. When the
group decides that a prisoner is recalcitrant or
reactionary, they may turn upon him and beat
him mercilessly. They may deprive him of
sleep, take his food away from him, spit upon
him, make him stand all day, and insist that
he be manacled. It is said that prisoners have
even killed or seriously injured other prisoners.
Occasionally the guards even intervene to protect
(*)
Various names have been given to the tricks
commonly used by prisoners to avoid
commitment such as, "finding a loophole, "
"assuming an appearance, " "spreading a
smoke screen, " "window dressing, " etc.
Each of these can become a subject for
special criticism.
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prisoners from their cellmates. Such pressure of
prisoners upon other prisoners is intentionally
permitted, and is interrupted only when danger to
the life of the prisoner, or the policy of the prison
officials, -indicates that it should be stopped.
Hence, in addition to the physical discomforts
inherent in this situation, the prisoner is placed
under profound psychological pressure. To
reiterate: Man is a social animal. His health is
as much dependent upon the maintenance of satis-
factory relationships with his associates as it is
upon his food and drink. Even if nothing else at all
were done to a prisoner, he would find it -almost
intolerable to be confined so intimately with -seven
other people who revile him and openly despi-se him.
Some sort of psychological modus vivendi leading to
a degree of acceptance is necessary for any man who
exists in a group of other men. Absence of such
an adaptation is profoundly disturbing. Added to
-this burden is the fact that the prisoner isa
bewildered, anxious, and beaten man from the start.
Furthermore, he has no privacy whatsoever. Every
moment of his life is spent within a few inches of
his fellow prisoners. There is nothing that he can do
or say that escapes them. Not even his past and
private life is sacred to him. Everything he has
ever done or said may be held up before him. On
top of all of this he is physically abused, fatigued
and degraded to the point of complete collapse;
but as in the interrogation situation, he is never
allowed to die and is always snatched back just before
the final breaking point.
Here again is an intolerable situation in which
no man can exist indefinitely. The prisoner must
conform to the demands of the group sooner or
later. Indeed, one is amazed not so much at the
fact that prisoners ultimately conform, as at the
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remarkable amount of punishment which some
prisoners absorb before they do so. One
would think that no man would actively resist
these pressures for more than a few months;
but even men who were predisposed toward
conforming in the first place, have been known
to put up some degree of resistance for years
before finally conforming in all minor details
to the demands put upon them. Even those who
have a wholehearted desire to embrace Commu-
nism find themselves faced with some demands
which they cannot accept, and seem to find it
necessary to exhaust themselves in resisting
these points before they finally "give in". It is
as if the prisoner cannot accept total conformity
as a solution until he has convinced himself that
it is, indeed, inevitable.
Prisoners who enter into the cell groups may
be defiant for a while, but they soon learn that
this brings punishment upon them, and they try
some trick of ostensible compliance. This is
detected, with further punishment and rejection.
Other ruses fall also. Finally, many reach a
point of emotional breakdown. The mood common
to this is profound depression, with crying,
whimpering and the loss of all care about personal
appearance. Some prisoners become disoriented.
Evidently, a few have delusory experiences, but
this is less common. Sometimes these emotional
disturbances go on for several months, and they
may recur.
In this new situation of intolerable pressure, the
prisoner is again offered an attractive "way out".
This attractive way out lies in the adoption of
the manifest ideals of Communism. At the expense
of belaboring the point, it must be said again that
the "exoteric" or "open" doctrine of Communism
is ostensibly an espousal of the ideals of self
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sacrifice, equality, peace, freedom from want,
and freedom from fear, which are common to
most of the major -ethical systems of mankind.
The prisoner is told, in effect, -that-the reason
he is being punished is that he has failed to live
up to this set of ideals. When he realizes his
errors, has cleansed his thoughts, and has
become a wholehearted believer, his ordeal
will end. All of the rationalizations of Com-
munist logic are brought into play to make his
conversion easier. From morning until night
he has this drummed into him in teaching sessions
from which he cannot escape.
Not only do prisoners revile and criticize
each other; some of them show a sincere desire
to help the new prisoner to "reform" himself.
The behavior of prisoners to other prisoners
cannot be seen as simply the free acting out of
hostility and aggression. Intermingled with this
there is a truly sincere desire on the part of
some to make the new prisoner see that only by
conforming and adopting the proper attitudes
and beliefs can he ameliorate his situation.
Some of them have sincerely adopted Communism
and see themselves as actually trying to make
the prisoner into a better person; others see
themselves as only trying to get him to do what
he must do in order to survive. In all cases this
rationalization enables the prisoners to take the
attitude that they are "only punishing the new
prisoner for his own good". This attitude causes
no difficulty for those who are Communists, or
who truly regard the new prisoner as a criminal;
but itis a source of great conflict for some, in-
cluding some priests and missionaries, who
realize that their effort-s to convert the new
prisoner may stem from some selfish motives
on their own part, and that they have the effect
of causing him to deny principles to which they
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themselves are dedicated. In any case, the new
prisoner does become aware of the fact that
there are members of the cell group who have
partly concealed sympathy for him, and are
sincerely trying to help him. He responds to
this offer of help as much as he succumbs to
the constant rejection and brutality.
From time to time, he is taken out of the
cell to see his interrogator for private discussions
and further opportunity to confess. Private
persuasion is thus added to group persuasion.
The attractiveness of the "way out" is as
effective in producing conversion as is the
necessity of escaping torture.
The duration of the period of imprisonment
in the group cell does not appear to bear any direct
relation to the progress made by the prisoner in
adopting Communist views. The prisoner may
assume that he has been converted, but his
mentors are hard to satisfy. The interrogator
and the other prisoners make conversion
difficult to attain. It is common practice for
them to ask for a new deposition and a new
"confession" from a prisoner as soon as he
appears to have achieved a certain amount of
"progress". This new "confession" usually
goes so far beyond the previous one that the
prisoner has great difficulty in accepting it.
This initiates a new period of conflict and
resistance on his part, and starts the cycle
over again. Western prisoners find it especially
difficult when the interrogators ask them to
confess to belonging to nonexistent espionage
rings, or to make other grossly invalid "confes-
sions ".
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Section 7: The Conversion
The prisoner faced with a KGB interrogation
in preparation for a trial is placed in a position
which he must -rationalize only a portion of his
beliefs and actions in order to reach a tolerable
modus vivendi; but the prisoner in a Chinese
prison has a much more difficult adaptation; he
must rationalize all of his beliefs and actions.
It gradually becomes apparent to him that his
ordeal may be of indefinite duration, and that
there is no escape from it short of complete
compliance with the demands of his captors.
Sooner or later most prisoners make the
necessary adaptation. They come to the point
of being able to say and do the things required
of them. They are able to change -their -thinking
enough to begin to identify themselves with the
values held by the prisoner group.
Here -again, -the rewards of rationalization
help -the prisoner, just as they helped him to
confess. For example, most people are not
without some sense of guilt about parts of
their past behavior. Such guilt, possessed by
prisoners, is greatly enhanced by the criticism
and accusations of their fellow prisoners.
Confession, even if it is entered into with some
reservations, gives a sense of relief. The
feeling of "joining' , " 11belonging" and "being
accepted" by the prisoner group provides a
most intense satisfaction to one who has been
rejected and reviled. Nor is it always very
difficult for him to accept the ostensible ideals
for which the group is working. Prisoners make
rationalizations such as, "After all, Communism
and Christianity are essentially the same thing. "
Or others, such as "I did not think of myself as a
spy, but, after all, I am a foreigner and foreigners
have done great harm to China. " "Well, I felt at
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first that all the things I did were perfectly
normal information-gathering episodes, done
because I was trying to learn everything I
could about China as a student. I also knew
that a government representative before I
left had told me to 'keep my eyes open',
although I didn't get paid for this and this was
not a real mission. Also I would periodically
report to the American Consul and other
Western diplomatic acquaintances, various points
of information on conditions in my area. Since
I was not doing this either for pay nor really
systematically organizing to get this information,
I felt that I was not spying. I tried to tell them
that really in all the information-passing I was
quite favorable to them. I told them that I had
voted for Norman Thomas (this made them mad).
When I went to China, I knew the Kuomintang was
rotten. I hoped China would go Titoist and I was
trying to get facts for my personal information.
However, I had eventually to admit that, by their
law and in their eyes, I had been guilty of espionage -
and, indirectly, espionage was sabotage of the
Chinese people. You see, I was organizing
everything I observed in my mind and was planning
to tell it or write a report when I got back.
"In the course of my stay as a student, I
got 'involved' with some important Chinese
officials, and this was bad for me.
"The arguments which eventually won me
over were these:
1. Did you give information to various
individuals? Yes.
2. Did you ever bribe anyone to get information?
At first I said no, but they convinced me
that if I offered someone a drink that came
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to visit me, and subsequently got in-
formation from him - this was a bribe.
So I had to admit that I got information
by bribing people.
3. Did this information-passing exceed
your normal activities as a student?
Yes, I had to admit that it did. The
Chinese have a very restricted view of
a student's pertinent activities.
4. If you are in China, shouldn't you be
subject to Chinese law and way of
looking at things? Yes, I finally had
to admit, morally, that this was true.
5. What finally convinced me was much
reflection on this question - "What
would these -activities be considere-d
by you if we did the same thing in the
U.S.A.?" This -questi-on somehow was
the clincher for me.
6. The Chinese emphasized point (3) very
much. They said that if I had stayed in
my circle of student friends and repeated
information to them - this would not be
spying. However, if you try to influence
people beyond your normal jobs; this was
very serious. "
All evidences of "reform" and "conversion" are
fostered by the patient help and teaching which the
prisoner receives from some of his associates,
and by the approval of interrogator. When he
finally submits, the prisoner receives a substantial
reward from a feeling of acceptance and belonging.
Suddenly, he ha's "friends". He may even be a
"hero". He unites himself with the others, and is
buoyed up by a sense of dedication to the " mission"
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that they are carrying out. At this stage, he
may be transferred to a "free and easy cell"
where conditions are less harsh. Here he has
an opportunity for reading, and he may be allowed
to teach other prisoners and to take part in
games. His new-found enthusiasm is abetted
by recurrent "drives" that take place within
the prison. - Drives against "hypocrisy, "
"waste", "graft", "corruption" and the like. -
all of which are fostered with enthusiastic
fervor by competitions among the cell groups.
Those who have been through the Communist
prison procedure often come out with the feeling
that no matter how difficult it was, it was worth-
while. They may even feel grateful to their
mentors. They feel as if they had been de-
stroyed, and then had been reintergrated.
Some feel as if they were more "mature"
than they had ever been before. This is
especially true of those who had previously
felt at loss for a goal in life, or who had not
been committed to a set of beliefs, friend-
ships, or an occupation. It is also true of
those who have carried a heavy load of guilt
about earlier behavior. In this latter group,
something akin to a religious "conversion" is
recognizable. Such prisoners have experienced
a period of degradation and intense punishment
which they find not entirely unacceptable because
of their pre-existing feelings of guilt and un-
worthiness; following this, they experience an
"acceptance" and "group identification" which
is more valuable to them than ever before
because of the fact that they have already
"confessed" and "atoned" for their sins.
The previously uncommitted, and those who
felt rejected by their society, may develop
an exhilarating feeling of "purpose" and
"belonging" which they never had before.
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In some instances, the enforced regimen of
study and discussion had opened entirely new
intellectual attitudes and created confidence in
intellectual ability that had previously been
lacking. Men living in boredom turn easily to
any scheduled escape from their boredom. Some
individuals felt profoundly inadequate to the
intellectual challenge offered by Communist
theory, in the hands of trained Communist
dialecticians, and what started originally as
a desire to learn turned temporarily to a
commitment. This commitment was re-
inforced by one-sided presentations and
distorted explanations that in situ made sense.
Re-entrance into their pre imprisonment
world, however, shattered most of their
illusions and, to some extent anyway, the
Communists were victims of their own
intensity, -Almost without exception,
relatively unlearned or non-intellectual
prisoners returned with a burning desire
for further education. The attitudes and
experiences of these men, in part, have
given rise to the not unwarranted plea for
more intensive training in American political
"doctrine" or "theory".
Even those prisoners who were previously
well integrated and on good terms with their
fellow men, and who were committed to
certain goals and belief-s, experience a pro-
found feeling of relief when they are finally
able to make the necessary rationalizations
and to join with the prisoner group.
Long after -the prisoner has developed a
willingness to conform, he continues -to be
exposed to an unremitting course of Communist
stu ._.
dies. During all of his imprisonment he is
denied access to any information which might
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contradict what he is being told. Over a
period of years this combination of mis-
information and absence of contrary evidence
produces some areas of distorted belief in
even the most skeptical. The vulnerability
of these distorted beliefs have already been
adequately documented and it can be stated
categorically that not one person evaluated
in this study underwent a fixed reversal of
belief. There was alteration of beliefs in
every instance and these alterations were in
the main, temporary at best. In many
instances, where fundamental alteration of
belief took place, this was in favor of Western
attitudes and unfavorable to worldwide
Communism.
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Section 8: The Trial
The period of indoctrination within Chinese
detention prisons has been known'to continue for as
Tong"as four years. A prisoner's release from the
detention prison often appears to be decided upon on
the basis of general policies rather than any specific
aspects of his case. The release of foreign nationals
is usually decided upon the basis of propaganda needs
or the requirements of international agreements.
Often release comes upon a prisoner quite unexpect-
edly. He is suddenly told that he will be freed.
Within a few days he is taken before a "court"
which is much like a Soviet Military Tribunal. There
is a "judge", a'prosecutor", perhaps a few steno-
graphers, and sometimes a "defense attorney". The
prisoner repeats his confession in what he has long
since learned is the proper manner. The defense
attorney asks for lenience. (There are no pleas of
"not guilty"). The judge then passes sentence. If
it has been decided to free the prisoner entirely, he
is usually sentenced to a term in prison equal to the
amount of time he has spent in the "detention prison",
and then (if he is a foreigner) to deportation. The
"lenient" judge then allows the prisoner to count
his time in the detention prison as if it were "real
imprisonment", and he is forthwith released. But,
if he is "to be punished", he will be sent to a labor
camp or to some other punishment institution to
begin his sentence.
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Section 9: The "Brain Washed"
The people who have been described in the
public press as the "most thoroughly brain washed"
have been prisoners suddenly released after periods
as long as four years in Chinese detention prisons.
Such persons have appeared at the border at Hong
Kong, looking calm, fit and sane. They praise their
captors, praise Communism and damn "American
imperialism. " It is said that their old acquaintances
are amazed, and that their political attitudes seem
to have "changed completely". The fact that they
praise their captors is regarded as the most amazing
of all; for it is known that they have been through many
horrible experiences in the course of their imprison-
ment. It is from this pattern of behavior that the
impression has arisen that the Chinese possess
esoteric and devilish methods of "thought control"
which no man can resist.
A number of the "most thoroughly brain
washed" American civilians have been studied
intensively. A great deal is known about these
people and what was done to them. The study of
these people reveals that they possessed certain
common characteristics before they were imprison-
ed. These can be enumerated:
(1) They were people who, long before their
imprisonment, were in rebellion against their
parents and the way of life to which their parents
adhered, including many of its standards, beliefs,
and practices.
(2) They were people who had no group of
friends within the United States, no American place,
organization, or occupation with which they were
firmly identified. So far as the United States is
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concerned, they were emotionally rootless.
(3) They were people who had previously
identified themselves with the "underdog". They
felt a strong sympathy for all people whom they
regarded as "oppressed" or "exploited," and
especially for minority groups of different racial
or cultural origin.
(4) They all spoke Chinese fluently, and
for many years had had a strong interest in China
and all things Chinese.
(5) All of them were familiar with the
concepts of Marxist socialism, and had been
intellectually sympathetic to socialist ideas for
many years before their imprisonment. Several
of them had been members of C-ommunist and
fellow-traveler groups, and. at least one of them
is believed to have been a party member.
(6) These people had been offered re-
patriation after the Communist Revolution, but
they had elected to remain in China, primarily
because they were both sympathetic to the Chinese
Communist Revolution, and curious to see how it
would work out. They were eager to help develop
the new China, if they were allowed to do so. For
months prior to the time of their imprisonment,
several of them were engaged in studying Chinese
Communist literature, and translating it into
English.
It seems probable that most of these people
were not actually Communist party members before
their arrest and imprisonment. They were sym-
pathetic to Communist ideas and to the new China;
but they had not committed themselves to Communism.
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They had toyed with their beliefs and found them
intellectually attractive; but they were content to
let their identification remain at this level. They
had studied Chinese, and went to Chinese schools;
but they continued to associate with the members
of the Western colony, and the #rms of their lives
were those common to expatriate Americans and
Europeans living in Chinese cities. At the time
of their arrests they were still rootless, un-
committed people.
(7) All these people were arrested on
charges which included "espionage". The treat-
ment which they received in prison was that which
has been described above. All of these people
confessed to "espionage," an'aafter their release
some of them continued for a while to state that
they had been American spies. None of them had
actually committed espionage, and none were
actually associated with American intelligence
organizations. But all of them had with innocent
intent done various things, such as describing
economic conditions in letters, or discussing the
morale of Communist troops with American
consular officials, which were "ostensibly" es-
pionage by Communist definition and which were
forbidden by Chinese Communist law. By Commu-
nist definition, all of them were of "reactionary
background" and "the agents of an Imperialist
power", and they had all "committed espionage".
During the course of their imprisonment, they "ad-
mitted" their acts and accepted the Communist
definition of them. The rationalizations which they
utilized in making their confessions were like those
which have been described above (see Section 16 & 17 ,
Part II).
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(8) They were also "converted" to the accept-
ance of Communist doctrine. That is to say, after
much soul-searching and profound emotional turmoil,
they committed themselves to have faith in, and work
for, the overt Communist ideals which they had pre-
viously accepted only on an intellectual basis. Some
of them emerged from prison with a sense -of purpose
and worthiness which-they had not felt before.
(9) They continued to hold pro-Communist
beliefs for varying periods of time after their release
and return to the United States. During this "recuper-
ation" period, primarily characterized by a process
of reality testing, the individual reverts to a set of
beliefs similar to those he held prior to his imprison-
ment. in some cases, however, a "conversion in
reverse" takes place, in which the individual may
become intensely anti-Communist.
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Section 10: The Effectiveness of Chinese Communist
Indoctrination Procedures
Just how effective are these procedures? How
long lasting are their effects? Do they actually effect
brain function? Are they "irresistible?" The answer
to these questions, like the answer to those about
Russian "public confession" trials, is not simple,
but it is available.
The Chinese prison indoctrination procedure
is never more than partly effective; but it always has
some effect on a man. No human can live through
months or years of this experience without suffering
emotional turmoil. In order to survive and not suffer
an emotional breakdown, he must make some ration-
alization which allows him to identify with the prison
group, and to relieve some of the pressures upon
himself. The extent of this rationalization need not
be greater than a belief that his present situation
justifies his present behavior and statements. Usual-
ly, it goes further than this. He usually finds some
aspects of Communist doctrine which he can admire,
and which he can identify with his own beliefs. Also,
because of his long period (sometimes years) of
incarceration and exposure to propaganda, with a
total absence of accurate information from the out-
side world, he may unwittingly adopt some Commu-
nist beliefs about current events. On some other
questions, he may have at least a tentative accept-
ance of Communist attitudes because he has been
presented with a great deal of plausible propaganda
ttevidence."
Thus, a man who spends a long period in a
Chinese Civil prison and survives can be expected to
have experienced anxiety, despair and doubt; he must
have compiled with the prison rules; he must have
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"confessed" to something; and he must have taken
part in the various aspects of the indoctrination
procedure. if the procedure was as vigorous and
thoroughgoing as that described above, he must
have shown enough evidence of conversion to satisfy
his cellmates and jailors; and this usually means
that he must have found at least some part of the
Chinese Communist value system which he can identi-
fy with his own and tentatively accept.
But on the other hand, even though some of
his attitudes and beliefs may have changed, his
capacity to think is not altered. So called "brain
washing" produces no permanent changes in the
function of the brain. Any form of imprisonment
may induce a prison psychosis, and inhuman treat-
ment may produce physical damage to the nervous
system; but these effects are not peculiar to
"brain washing. '4
Nor is there any unexplainable deficiency
in the memory offormer prisoners. Prisoners do
not remember things which happened when they
were delirious or otherwise psychotic. They may
forget minor details of their -experiences with
the passage of time. Many of them do not wish to
discuss some points of their treatment, because
the memories of these are painful, and the discuss-
ion of them is disturbing. But even the "most brain
washed" are capable of a vivid recollection of what
occurred during their imprisonment.
Furthermore, the majority of those released
carry with them an intense bitterness about some
part of their imprisonment. Sometimes this is
directed at certain other prisoners or jailors, but
frequently it may be directed at the whole
Communist system. All prisoners come out with a
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realization that they have been cut off from the Western
world for a long time, and with some suspicion that
not everything in the outside world will turn out to be
as it was presented to them in prison. All of them
have a tentative orientation toward whatever new
beliefs they may have, and most of them have reser-
vations about their entire experience.
Upon their release, former prisoners set
about a process of "reality testing. " Without committ-
ing himself, each newly released man characteristically
begins to talk to friends, and to listen to accounts of
what has happened while he was away in prison. He
begins to read back copies of books and magazines. He
begins to compare what was told him with the facts as
observed and reported in the American press. The
available evidence suggests that within a period of
months he readjusts himself to the outside world and
resumes a set of beliefs roughly similar to those he
held prior to his imprisonment.
Where there are detectable differences, they
seem to take the form of greater maturity in thinking,
a more critical approach to beliefs formerly taken for
granted, and a desire to learn more about the issues
on which they were "taken in" by their interrogators.
In some cases a "conversion in reverse" may be
anticipated, characterized by an intense antagonism
to Communism in practice.
Thus, it is quite erroneous to think that those
who have experienced prison indoctrination in Commu-
nist China emerge as thoroughly indoctrinated Commu-
nists who express praise and admiration for their
captors. Such people are as unusual as the public con-
fessors in Russian purge trials. The vast majority of
released prisoners say little or nothing. What pro-
Communist beliefs they have they keep to themselves
and express only in private. Many are bitterly anti-
Communist. Although they are willing to admit that
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there are good aspects about the regime, and agree
that they cooperated and "confessed" while in prison,
they do not have any genuine -identification with
Communism.
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A Theorectical Analysis of the Effects
of the Communist Interrogation-
Indoctrination Process
A central theme of this paper has been the
proposition that there is no need to assume that
the Communists utilize occult methods in manag-
ing their prisoners. The results obtained are
readily understandable on the basis of nefarious
but well known police methods used. Theory has
been avoided because many present-day concepts
of human behavior are still in a formulative
state. Notwithstanding this, there is a sufficient
body of evidence to allow us to explain why the
results obtained flow from the methods used.
The Communist arrest-imprisonment
procedure has the effect of seriously disturbing
mants total relation to his environment. It
produces many disturbing and unpleasant sen-
sations. In the description of the procedures of
arrest, isolation, interrogation and torture, it
was mentioned that these produce anxiety, fear,
tension, resentment, uncertainty, loneliness,
boredom, fatigue, sleeplessness, hunger, cold-
ness and pain. A similar pattern of reaction has
been observed in various experimental studies of
pain, sleep deprivation, sensory limitation and
so forth. The first part of this reaction is a
period of patient and purposeful exploratory
activity. The man carefully tries every possible
solution to the situation which may relieve him of
the pressures upon him. If one arranges the
experimental situation so that the man cannot find
a satisfactory solution by his exploratory activities,
his next reaction is an increasing and random
exploration, with a general increase of motor
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activity, and an overflow of this activity into other
behavior of a non-purposive nature. He appears to
"become excited" and shows evidences of anxiety,
hyperactivity, and sometimes panic. If the pressures
of the experimental situation are continued, the
hyperactivity of the subject will gradually subside,
with. the exception of isolated repetitive acts . He
may settle upon one form of response which he
repeats endlessly and automatically even though this
endlessly repeated action can never produce a solution.
If the pressures are continued long enough, his
ultimate response is one of total inactivity. He be-
comes first exasperated and finally dejected and
dependent upon anyone who offers to help him. He
becomes unusually receptive to approval or human
support.
For want of a better term the experimental
situation just described has been called a "situation
of frustration". Situations of frustration are the
common denominator of many of the Communist
prison experiences. The -reaction of the prisoner
to the isolation routine closely reproduces that
which -occurs in an artificially frustrating situation.
It is a more all-embracing reaction, slower in its
development and more devastating in its effects, but
it is basically -similar. Situations of frustration
also occur in. the interrogation situation, where the
prisoner must prepare a -satisfactory confession
and finds that no matter what he does or says he can-
not satisfy the interrogator. Likewise, -situations of
frustration occur again and again in a group cell in
the Chinese prison. Here also the prisoner finds
that no matter how much he attempts to comply with
the demands of the interrogator and the other
prisoners, his confession is never satisfactory, and
his ordeal is renewed.
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The Communist interrogation and indoctrination
programs have much in common. In all of them the
subject is faced with pressure upon pressure, and dis-
comfort upon discomfort, and none of his attempts to
deal with his situation lead to amelioration of his
lot. Psychiatrists may refer to a man in such a situ-
ation as "emotionally bankrupt". Some of the patients
who seek the help of psychiatrists are in a similar
state. The pressures and convolutions of their lives
have reached a point at which they can no longer deal
with them, and they must have help. It is recognized
that such a state of "emotional bankruptcy" provides
a good opportunity for the therapist. A man will not
turn to a therapist for help as long as he feels that
there are other means of deliverance.
When a man is at the "end of his rope", he
accepts avidly any help that is offered. In the
experimental situation of frustration, the subject
who has reached this stage will readily accept suggest-
ions for solving the experimental problem, however
absurd. His response to words of encouragement is
striking. Similarly, the patient who has reached a
point of desperation may abjectly put himself into
the hands of a psychiatrist toward whom he has
previously displayed contempt and hostility, and he
will enter into a course of treatment however pain-
ful it may be.
A characteristic of those who are "bankrupt"
and need help is their need to talk. They obtain deep
satisfaction simply from unburdening themselves to
another human being. In Communist prisons this need
to talk is greatly fortified by the regimen of total iso-
lation. This is an important reason why the Commu-
nist interrogator, being the only man to whom the
prisoner talks, is in such an advantageous position
for obtaining information from him. The interrogator
is dealing with a man who might be looked upon as an
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intentionally created patient; the interrogator has all
of the advantages and opportunities which accrue to a
therapist dealing with a patient in desperate need of
help.
Although the Communist management of
prisoners was not designed by psychiatrists or
neurophysiologists, and those who carry out this
management do not have formal psychological train-
ing, nevertheless the interrogator does deal with the
prisoner by using many of the same methods which
the physician uses in the management of his patient.
He allows the prisoner to talk at length about his
family and his life. This tends to produce in the
prisoner a warm and dependent relationship toward
him. The interrogator approves and rewards
proper attitudes and behavior and disapproves and
punishes improper attitudes and behavior. Because
of his dependence upon the interrogator the prisoner
develops a desire to please him. The prisoner glows
when he is rewarded, and is disturbed when he is re-
jected.
The interrogator has in his hands knowledge
of most of the life history of his victim. He does not
hesitate to pick out from this history the disturbing
and unpleasant episodes. He uses them as a lever
to humiliate the prisoner and to increase his feelings
of guilt and unworthiness. The potent effect which
this procedure can have upon a man has been demons-
trated many times in the laboratory. It has been
observed that when threatening episodes from a
patient's life are introduced by the physician and
discussed intensively with indications of disapproval,
the patient may be greatly disturbed. Not only his
mood and behavior are disturbed, but profound and
potentially dangerous alterations in his bodily
processes occur also. Thus, the power. which the
interrogator pos-sesses in dealing with the prisoner
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is great; his ability to manipulate both the physical and
interpersonal aspects of the prisoner?s environment
place his victim in a highly vulnerable position.
Furthermore, the interrogator frequently
takes the prisoner through a series of confessions.
No matter what the prisoner writes in his first
protocol, the interrogator is not satisfied. The
interrogator questions every sentence. The prisoner
is forced to argue against every change, every demand
for increased self-incrimination. Eventually the
prisoner has begun to argue for maintaining statements
that he would not have accepted prior to the commence-
ment of the interrogation. Every time that he gives
in on a point to the interrogator, he must rewrite his
whole confession. Still the interrogator is not satis-
fied. In a desperate attempt to maintain some semb-
lance of integrity and to avoid further compromise,
the prisoner must begin to argue that what he has
already confessed is true. He begins to accept as his
own the statements he has written. Step by step, he
begins to believe some of what he has stated. By
this process identification with the interrogator's
values and beliefs takes place.
It is readily understandable, therefore, that
the prisoner ultimately adopts the suggestions of
the interrogator with regard to the protocol. It is
not at all incomprehensible that some prisoners
can be carried to the point of confessing to crimes
for which death is the certain punishment. And
finally, since the intimate interpersonal relation
between prisoner and interrogator continues through
the period of the trial, it is also understandable that
prisoners may continue to play their prescribed roles
before the Judge and the state prosecutor.
The situation within the group prison cell
in the Chinese prison is akin to that of the
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interrogator and prisoner. Here, the important
relationship is between the prisoner and the group,
with the prisoner striving to gain the acceptance of
the group and to identify himself with them. In this
setting the pressures are more prolonged and the
situation of frustration may be repeated many times,
because the prisoner is called upon not only to
accept a protocol or confession, but to adopt a
whole new attitude. It may take a long time before
such a state of utter defeat is achieved, but when it
is, the prisoner's reaction has many of the features
of a religious conversion.
Those who have experienced a true religious
conversion maintain their new attitudes and behavior
for an unpredictable length of time. It has been a
general experience that most of the religious conver-
sions experienced at camp meetings or revivals are
of evanescent nature. The experience is a power-
ful one, but the convert usually-reverts to his former
pattern within a matter of a_few days. But this is
not necessarily so. Some religious conversions have
long lasting or even permanent effects. So it appears
to be with the conversion which takes place in Commu-
nist prisons or indoctrination schools with reinforce-
ment can be provided by the society in which he is
placed. Those who go through the experience often
feel that it was unpleasant but worthwhile. Its effects
upon their attitudes and behavior, however, are
usually evanescent.
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