Life and death in the old U.S.S.R. …

… The Horror, the Horror. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

One might suppose that Yezhov had Babel arrested for sleeping with his wife, but in fact he was arrested after Yezhov fell, apparently because it was routine to incarcerate anyone associated with an enemy of the people. Under interrogation, which almost always involved torture, Babel implicated other cultural figures—not as spies, but for the views they actually held, which no one but a totalitarian would find objectionable. Sergei Eisenstein, according to Babel, had remarked that under current conditions gifted individuals could not fully realize their talents, while the writer Ilya Ehrenburg complained that “the continuing wave of arrests forced all Soviet citizens to break off any relations with foreigners.” As was not uncommon, Babel’s confession was bloodstained.