Webbs on the Show Trials, the
Women Are Not Human
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Webbs
on the Show Trials, The
"To many
people in Great Britain, the outstanding feature of the record since
1934 is the series of trials of highly-placed Soviet citizens for
high treason. That so many men in high official positions, mostly
active participants in the revolution of 1917 and some of them companions
of Lenin, should have committed such crimes has seemed to Western
observers almost incredible. That in the course of the customary private
investigations prior to the judicial trials the defendants should
one and all have made full and detailed confessions unreservedly repeated
in open court of the guilt not only of themselves but also of their
fellow criminals seemed to raise the tragic story to the fantastic
madness of a nightmare; it seemed that the confessions must have been
forced on the prisoners by torture or the threat of torture.
"A distinguished
Irishman hints that what needs explanation is the British procedure
in criminal prosecutions, which differs so remarkably from that of
all the other nations of Europe. In his view, the conduct of the prisoners
in these Russian trials is in full accord with the Russian character.
In England, our friend remarks, a prisoner indicted for treason is
practically forced to go through a legal routine of defence. He pleads
not guilty; his counsel assumes for him an attitude of injured innocence,
demanding legitimate proof of every statement and setting up a hypothesis
as to what actually happened which is consistent with the prisoner's
innocence. The judge compliments the councsel on the brilliant ability
with which he has conducted his case. He points out to the jury that
the hypothesis is manifestly fictitious and the prisoner obviously
guilty. The jury finds the necessary verdict. The judge then, congratulating
the prisoner on having been so ably defended and fairly tried, sentences
him to death and commends him to the mercy of his God.
"May not
this procdure, which seems so natural and inevitable to us, very intelligibly
strike a Russian as a farce tolerated because our rules of evidence
and forms of trial have never been systematically revised on rational
lines? Why should a conspirator who is caught out by the Government,
and who knows that he is caught out and that no denials or hypothetical
fairy tales will help him to escape - why should he degrade himself
uselessly by a mock defence, instead of at once facing the facts and
discussing his part in them quite candidly with his captors? There
is a possibility of moving them by such a friendly course: in a mock
defence there is none. Our candid friend submits that the Russian
prisoners simply behave naturally and sensibly, as Englishmen would
were they not virtually compelled not to by their highly artificial
legal system. What possible good could it do them to behave otherwise?
Why should they waste the time of the court and disgrace themselves
by prevaricating like pickpockets merely to employ the barristers?
Our friend suggests that some of us are so obsessed with our national
routine that the candour of the Russian conspirators seems grotesque
and insane. Which of the two courses, viewed by an impartial visitor
from Mars, would appear the saner?
"Nevertheless
the staging of the successive trials, and the summary executions in
which they ended appeared strangely inconsistent with the other actions
of the Soviet Government. It must have been foreseen that this whole
series of trials, the numerous shootings to which they led, the publicity
and popular absue of the defendants which the Government apparently
organised and encouraged, and especially the malignity with which
Leon Trotsky, safe in far-off Mexico, was assailed, would produce
a set-back in the international appreciation which the Soviet Union
was increasingly receiving. The Soviet Government must have had strong
grounds for the action, which has involved such unwelcome consequences."
[Source:
Soviet Communism - A New Civilisation by Sidney and Beatrice
Webb (Victor Gollancz, 1937), Postscript to the second edition (the
one without the question mark in the title).]
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Women
Are Not Human
A neglected masterpiece
of European satire, Women Are Not Human -- Mulieres homines
non esse -- was the title of a controversial pamphlet published
in 1595. Its author remains anonymous, although many people, including
Pierre Bayle, thought the author to be one Valtin Havekenthal, a German
humanist who died shortly afterwards. Deploying the same techniques
of scriptural interpretation which the Polish Anabaptists had used in
order to deny the divinity of Christ, the author argues that since it
nowhere explicitly states in either the Old or New Testaments that women
were human beings, it would be impious to conclude that they were. A
variety of passages in Scripture that seem to suggest that women are
in fact human beings are subjected to detailed scrutiny, in the light
of which none are found to be persuasive. Not everyone appreciated the
joke, including the Popes, who had the treatise placed on the Index.
An earnest Lutheran, Simon Gedik, published a response in the same year;
and an Italian nun, Arcangela Tarabotti, issued her own refutation in
1651, Che le donne siano della spezie degli uomini. These texts,
together with the original pamphlet, have recently been translated into
English by Theresa M. Kenney and published in 1998 by the Crossroad
Publishing Company as Women Are Not Human: an anonymous treatise
and responses.
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