Andrei Ianourievitch Vychinsky is a lawyer and diplomatic Soviet, born on December 10th 1883 and dead on November 22nd 1954

A Menchévique lawyer

Lawyer of formation, of middle-class origin, speaking French, Vynchinski well is lawyer in Bakou when it adheres to the fraction Menchévique POSDR in 1903. He very early becomes acquainted with Stalin. Several sources indicate that it would have been member of the Okhrana, infiltrated in the Party like provocative agent. At all events, it joined the Bolsheviks only in 1920 but climbs the levels with a speed surprising, undoubtedly explainable at the same time by its fidelity as unconditional as early with Stalin which knew his past and his absolute absence of scruples in its acts and its standpoint.

In 1922, it is indicated president of the college of lawyers of Moscow. With this function, it is one of the instruments, undoubtedly most effective, of a propaganda which aims at giving to the legal system of the very new Soviet Union appearances of the right, in particular in the legal protections offered to shown within the framework of their defense.

Since 1928, Vynchinski carries out the great lawsuits as a public prosecutor of Russia in 1931 then of the USSR in 1935. It defines the legal bases of the Soviet repressive right and becomes one of the characters for government.

Lawsuits of Moscow

It appears on the front of the scene at the time of large the Procès of Moscow which eliminates in several batches, of 1936 to 1938, it quasi totality of the old guard Bolshevik. Its strong languages, its insults with condemned, its mode of charge, all its personality raise the dislike and the interest of the Western newspapers which, at the time, cover these amazing settings in scene.

Vynchinski is a Master in the use of the insinuations and the false allegations to make of an innocent person an apparent culprit, simply while resting on their " confessions". This strategy is very effective. The defendants recognize them same the fixed prices as one reproaches them because it are subjected to threats or, worse, because it received promises of leniency if they act thus. This strategy does not require any proof then even - as the lawsuit of Zinoviev showed it - that engagements of the prosecutor and his collaborators of NKVD were never held, the sentence of dead being immediately carried out after the statement of the verdict.

Better known details today, show through moral of Vynchinski, able to treat with some marked to require them of the money all while stripping them their goods (case of the datcha of Serebriakov in January 1937, become property of the Prosecutor where Stalin was then accepted several times). In the same way, to take the defense of certain defendants could be dangerous. One quotes the example of this official party which, assisting from his/her niece, dared to express criticisms towards the judges leading it at once to be marked of espionage then to being carried out without delay.

The high Soviet diplomacy

In 1940, Vynchinski is sent as police chief in Latvia, is responsible for the annexation of this State by the USSR and there starts bloody purgings. To undoubtedly thank it for his decisive assistance at the time of the lawsuits of Moscow, Stalin rewards it by making for him an eminent member for the Soviet diplomatic corps. He accompanies the General secretary in February 1945 with the talks by Yalta then assists it at the time of the capitulation of the Germany in May 1945.

Vynchinski replaces Molotov with the direction of the foreign policy and becomes Foreign Minister in 1949 (he is then permanent representative with the Council of UNO). It is, for this reason, one of the craftsmen of the Cold war, giving some speeches which make date with the platform of the the United Nations.

The death of Stalin in March 1953 does not put a term at the career of the former prosecutor who preserves his station in the apparatus of State but, a few months later, on November 22nd, 1954, it dies brutally in New York. This sudden death will make some time to plane rumors of assassination charged to the new Soviet leaders. At all events, it receives national funeral in Moscow before being buried with the foot of the Kremlin.

Right and Soviet Union

Essential collaborator of the Stalinist system, Vynchinski gave to this totalitarian capacity a terrifying face, that of the right and legality. So for the civil period of war (1918-1921) which follows the Russian Révolution the repressive system of the mode Bolshevik (marked by the central role of the Tchéka of Felix Dzerjinski during “red terror”) is not pressed on a legal apparatus established good, the Stalinist period was that of the justification by the right of the violent elimination of all the opponents. The Procès of Moscow, which took again the legal elements present in the democratic systems - prosecutors, lawyers, pleadings, right of information etc - were not that a caricature compared with their Western models. But this apparent respect of the forms was all the more frightening as it legitimated the most unacceptable charges thus and most contemptible.

Expert of the legal appearance of a dictatorship relentless, as shows it the example of the constitution of 1936, whose drafting returned to him partly and who was qualified in Soviet Union by certain leaders of " more democratic of the world " whereas it considered forever, in particular, political plurality or freedom of the press. Left modern Fouquier-Tinville, Vynchinski exceeded in the posterity the very negative fame however of the public prosecutor of the French revolution at the time of the Terreur. It is today the absolute symbol of the dictatorships and the totalitarian modes at the point to acquire, as the multitude of texts, articles, works shows it where its patronym is found, the statute of a common noun.

Sources

• Arcadi Vaksberg, Vychinsky the prosecutor of Stalin , Albin Michel, 1991

External bonds

• a presentation of the book of A. Vaksberg