Читать книгу Out of the Night - Richard Julius Herman Krebs - Страница 19

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During the three days my ship remained at Antwerp I spent every free hour with Bandura and his followers, who had greatly increased in numbers in the months of my absence. Each week ships from Helsingfors, Reval and Riga had carried to Antwerp a batch of stowaways,—mostly political fugitives, all embittered, all accustomed to a hard and frugal way of existence. Among them Bandura moved like an uncrowned king; he was their leader because he lived as they lived, worked as they worked, and still proved himself the most able in this crew. He now had established contacts with bands of political harbor marauders in Marseilles, Bordeaux, London, Cardiff, Rotterdam and even in Oran of the North African coast, and in Strasbourg, the shipping center on the upper Rhine. He corresponded and co-operated with I.W.W. units on the American West Coast, and with anarchist groups in Spanish and Latin American ports.

One of Bandura’s new followers was Ilja Weiss, an “activist” in my early Hamburg days. Weiss was the Hungarian who had slapped a pot of paint in the face of an officer of the Hamburg harbor police. The German police had pushed him clandestinely into Holland. Arrested again in Rotterdam, the Dutch police had pushed him into Belgium. I met Weiss in a half-dark backroom of a saloon.

“You are still a communist?” he demanded.

“Certainly.”

“Well, then you must know what we have set out to do in Bandura’s outfit.”

I listened. Weiss worked in close co-operation with my former chief, Albert Walter, in Hamburg. The German Communist Party had emerged out of the short period of illegality which had followed the bloody October, and Walter had re-established headquarters in the Rothesoodstrasse, near the Hamburg water-front, directing from there communist maritime activities in all parts of the world for the Profintern—the Red International of Labor Unions. The task of this organization, founded in 1920 as an auxiliary to the Comintern, was to conquer all existing trade unions or, where domination proved impossible, to wreck these unions and to set up communist bodies in their place.

The Comintern had delegated Ilja Weiss and others to steal Bandura’s organization away from its creator and leader, for whom the Comintern had no use because he stubbornly refused to take orders. Twice attempts had been made to bribe Bandura by offering him a lucrative position in the All-Russian Transport Union in Leningrad, but the Ukrainian had derisively refused.

I admired Bandura and I felt an honest contempt for Ilja Weiss. He insinuated that a campaign had been launched by the communist faction to spread the rumor that Bandura was a narcotics addict, and that he used most of the money donated by seamen to keep several mistresses in idle luxury. The circumstances of Mariette’s burial were to serve as a salient point in this intrigue. Ilja Weiss suggested that I should spread among the “activists” in every port of call the word that Bandura was a crook, that he led a double life, pretending to be a pioneer of workers’ welfare, but that his private life was that of a bourgeois libertine.

“Bandura is nothing of the sort,” I said.

“Maybe not,” Weiss countered. “But politically, he is an irresponsible blackguard.”

“Why can’t we acknowledge Bandura’s leadership?”

“We’d never be sure in a revolutionary crisis that he wouldn’t break away with slogans of his own. He’s too damned independent. How do we know he doesn’t get paid by the ship-owners?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

Weiss’ greenish eyes were small and bright. “Bandura makes no difference between a fascist dictatorship and the dictatorship of the proletariat,” he went on. “Every government is tyranny in his eyes. In a war against the Soviet Union, he would refuse to campaign for Russia. We must get rid of him. He is a counter-revolutionary in disguise.”

“Prove it!” I cried out in a fury.

“Bandura carries on his agitation aboard Soviet ships,” Weiss said with subdued ferocity. “He tells the Russian seamen that they have a right to go on strike for better food and higher pay. What is that?”

I was silent. Weiss added:

“It is one thing to strike against the capitalists; it is an entirely different thing to go on strike against a socialist state.”

I was deeply disturbed. What Ilja Weiss had told me of the communist offensive to control the water-fronts made my heart beat faster. In the end we would win; the red flags of freedom and equality would fly over the most distant ocean; sailors would be masters of their ships; precious cargoes would be carried to fill the needs of peoples and not the ship-owners’ pockets. I was resolved to do my share to carry communism to victory on the seas. So would Bandura, I had felt sure, whose readiness to lay down his life for the workers’ cause was beyond all doubt. And now came Weiss who said that Bandura was a foe of social revolution, and an enemy of the Soviet Union! This was my first encounter with the ruthless intolerance of a monolithic creed toward all individual independence of attitude and thinking. It was not Weiss who had originated the plan to defame and to break Bandura; he was simply carrying out a command. He was a Bolshevik of the East European school who would not shrink from murdering his own brother if his chiefs told him that such an act would bring victory a tiny step closer. Without such men, and such blind loyalty, the Comintern could not survive. Disloyalty I detested. A traitor was not worth a bullet. Yet, I recognized the hideous alternative: if Ilja Weiss spoke the truth, a refusal to betray Bandura would make me appear as a traitor to the communist cause.

Before the Montpelier left Antwerp, I asked Bandura point-blank: “Are you for workers’ power in Russia?”

His gaunt face contracted as if under a spasm of pain. He fished some Dobbelman tobacco out of his hip pocket, rolled a cigarette, and lit it. Then he said calmly:

“I know why you ask this. Yes, I am for a free society of workers, but in Russia the workers have no power and no real freedom. No Party can give the workers freedom. For freedom they must fight themselves.”

“The communists lead them in this fight,” I protested.

“Most communists I know are fine, brave men,” Bandura said. “Only their leaders—bah!” His arms flew out in a gesture of despair. “They are mutton thieves,” he added fiercely.

My attempt to change Bandura’s views was futile. Ilja Weiss had his way.

The Montpelier steamed to Hamburg. I had apprehensions that the police would arrest me for my part in the October insurrection. But my steamer flew the Stars and Stripes of America, a welcome flag in any German port, and the police did not bother the crew. I hired an unemployed German to work in my place as long as the ship was in Hamburg, and went ashore to report to Albert Walter.

The aspect of Walter’s office had changed. There were new desks, new filing cabinets, and large new maps on the walls. There was a large reading-room, well equipped with communist newspapers in many languages, and a “Lenin library.” The ground floor of the building was occupied by a hall for meetings and a restaurant in which drinks were served. The place was crowded with seamen and their girls, and a sprinkling of “activists” was at work to shape the opinions of the visitors. Officially the building was known as the International Port Bureau, the first in a chain of seamen’s clubs which was to encircle the earth in years to come,—centers of propaganda and a growing communist power on the water-front.

Albert Walter, brown-skinned and massive, was enthusiastic over his work and hungry for the smallest details related to shipping.

“Write down all names and addresses, conditions you’ve found in sailors’ boarding houses, seamen’s missions, shipping offices, jails, and describe the methods of customs examinations in different ports, places where you crossed the border, and how you got into England. Forget nothing. Small items can be of great value to us. We’re reaching out with all sails set.”

I wrote the report. The same night I was called to Walter’s private quarters. He lived in a modest third-floor apartment, together with his mother, a small, agile woman whose life revolved around her energetic son. Also present was Walter’s trusted secretary, a fanatic young blonde named Gertrude G——, and two men I had not seen before.

The two men were Atchkanov, a Russian, and Ryatt, a Lett. Both had a mandate from Moscow to act as advisers to Albert Walter in the international drive for communist domination of shipping. Atchkanov was a lively little man with a mop of unruly gray hair and restless button-eyes. He was Zinoviev’s right-hand man in marine problems. Ryatt was tall and lean, with a bony, non-committal face. He was a specialist in communist war fleet organization. Later in 1931, he became the director of the Comintern passport forging bureau, with offices on the Ogorodnikova in Leningrad.

“Ah, a real sailor,” Atchkanov muttered when I entered.

Old Mrs. Walter poured Caucasian wine into glasses, and Walter distributed excellent cigars. Atchkanov read a report from Ilja Weiss on the progress of efforts to take over Bandura’s organization. Turning to me, he said, “It was smart of you to establish a good personal relationship with Bandura.” I replied that I had a hearty dislike for dishonest underground maneuvering.

Atchkanov smiled faintly. “Practical Bolshevism means the correct combination of legal with illegal methods of work,” he said. “Understand, dear comrade, that strategical maneuvers have an important place in our operations. And what is a strategical maneuver? We launch a ruthless offensive, while declaring openly that we are waging a purely defensive campaign. We feign friendliness toward an implacable enemy so as to have a better chance to annihilate him in good time. These are strategical maneuvers.”

“I like clear fronts,” I said stubbornly. “If we fight someone, then why not make an open declaration of war? Trickery the workers will never understand. Why must we maneuver to bring one man to grief? The Comintern Congress gave us the direction, ‘To power through conquest of the masses’.”

“That is correct,” interrupted Ryatt, who spoke in a harsh, staccato voice. “We must stay with the masses, bind ourselves to them, never act in isolation from the masses—except in conspirative tasks!”

All this I comprehended and accepted. But that Bandura, who had been kind to me, should be defamed, perhaps destroyed, in such a cold-blooded manner evoked my resentment. Atchkanov and Ryatt, with characteristic persistence and patience, persuaded and argued like clever older brothers. They trusted me, and apparently needed me, and it was no hard task for them to bend me to their will.

“More elasticity!” Atchkanov cried. “Bolshevist elasticity. Comrade Lenin himself taught us that Bolshevist elasticity consists of the ability to change tactics and to employ the widest range of methods without ever losing sight of the one and only final goal.”

To me, still a young communist, these men were heroic figures. In Atchkanov and his kind I then saw idealists who had behind them the overwhelming authority of the victorious Soviet Revolution.

Atchkanov put his arm around my shoulder. “Comrade Walter has recommended you for a try-out in international work,” he said. “You are still young in the movement, but you’ve done good work in the harbor and you’ve fought on the barricades.”

I was somewhat embarrassed by his friendliness. “That’s nothing,” I murmured.

Albert Walter guffawed: “Did you hear that? He says that’s nothing.”

“One day on the barricades,” observed Ryatt, “is worth three years of ordinary Party membership.”

The instructions I received were, in short, as follows:

I was to keep my berth aboard the Montpelier and return to the Pacific Coast. Before leaving Europe, Ilja Weiss would arrange to have me appointed as Bandura’s delegate to the groups with which he had contacts in the harbors of California, with the aim of bringing these groups into Albert Walter’s network of harbor “activists.” I was to take with me large quantities of propaganda literature to be distributed in all ports of call. Forwarding addresses in San Pedro and San Francisco were agreed upon, for the shipping of further propaganda material in English, Spanish, and Japanese. The Spanish pamphlets were for distribution to Mexicans, to the dockers in Panama and the workers of the Panama Canal Zone. The Japanese material was to go to Honolulu and other places on the Hawaiian Islands. Wherever possible, I was to recruit sympathizing seamen from other ships to join in this distribution of propaganda literature. I was to attempt to find one “activist” in each port of call reliable enough to be supplied with money and instructions for the formation of “activist” brigades after the Hamburg model. I was to become a member of the International Seamen’s Union of America, then under the conservative guidance of Andrew Furuseth, to form opposition cells in his organization in a drive for a militant class war policy. If possible, I was to foster contacts with men belonging to the United States Coast Guard, particularly those who had gotten themselves into some sort of trouble, and forward their names and addresses to Albert Walter and Atchkanov. I was to “test”—by bribes—a certain official of the American Shipowners’ Association in Los Angeles Harbor as to his willingness to place communists aboard American ships. I was also to take close-up photographs and furnish a detailed description of a new harpoon gun used by the whaling ships of the California Sea Products Corporation, and to study and report upon the use of airplanes in the great tuna fisheries of Southern California. Finally, I was expected to send in regular reports on all I could find out about the economic conditions and political attitudes of American water-front workers, particularly those engaged in the vast lumber industry and on the tank-ships of the Standard Oil Company.

This was a bulky order. Aside from the propaganda assignments, it savored of G.P.U. business.

“Don’t try to do everything at one time,” Ryatt advised. “You know, before the war they sent me to prison for ten years. I soon learned I couldn’t do ten years all at once. I did one day at a time, and so it was easy. That is how you must do it.”

Albert Walter saw me making notes. “Don’t write up too much,” he said.

“But I can’t remember it all.”

“Well, destroy your notes as soon as you do.”

I was allowed forty American dollars a month with which to finance my work. Walter counted out the first three months’ budget in new American bills, and entered the sum he gave me in a tiny note-book. Walter added:

“And don’t fear that you’ll be alone in the wilderness. We’ve a great many comrades like you aboard the ships and active in the same field.”

Soon all details were arranged for. As usual, I was not permitted to leave Albert Walter’s apartment before Ryatt and Atchkanov, who were in the country illegally, had departed. Ryatt shook hands with me gravely. Atchkanov beamed. He almost hugged me. “Do your job well,” he said in his fluent Slavic German.

After they had gone, Albert Walter threw open all windows. He was in shirt sleeves. His big chest expanded. The skin of his arms and chest had the color of old teak-wood. Gertrude G——, his secretary, prepared to take dictation. She perked up, quiet and alert. “Life is a joyous affair,” Walter rumbled. Relaxing, Gertrude smiled for the first time that evening.

Old Mrs. Walter, moving around like a faithful ghost, had cleared off the table. “Child,” she suddenly told her burly son, “it’s eleven. You must go to bed.”

He rose and gave her a resounding kiss.

“I’ll go now, Comrade Walter,” I said.

“Mach’s gut,” he replied, “and I’ll stand by you through hell.”

The night was bright, and a warm wind blew. I strode toward the harbor. I felt the urge to sing. My blood, too, was singing.

The night before the Montpelier left Hamburg on her westward voyage was the right kind of a night for furtive doings. I volunteered for the job of gangway watchman. All the members of the crew were ashore for a few last hours of gamboling with the Reeperbahn belles. The captain had locked himself in with two girls, a lot of wine and a substantial night-lunch, and the curtains on his cabin windows were drawn. Meanwhile, Albert Walter’s contact men worked with noiseless efficiency.

Large paper suitcases, heavily loaded, were smuggled aboard. The black initials on their outsides denoted the language in which the literature they contained was printed. And late at night a surreptitious visitor, a man whom I had least expected to see, arrived. He was Hugo Marx, the Hamburg Jack-of-all-trades for the G.P.U.

“I bring you a friend,” he said. “He must go to Canada in safety. You must find him a place to stow away.”

I already had too many duties to attend to without bothering about a stowaway.

“Comrade Walter gave me no instructions about it,” I said. “Put him on another ship.”

“No. He must go with you,” Hugo Marx hissed.

“Who sent him?”

The G.P.U. man snapped viciously: “Why do you seek information you don’t need?” I was put out over my own impulsiveness.

“Comrade Ryatt wishes this friend to go on your ship,” Marx said in a more conciliatory tone.

There the matter ended. I had suspected that the newcomer was merely another illegal emigrant who paid the Party a few dollars for a passage. Now I knew he was not. He was a communist going out on Party business. It was not in my power to ask further questions.

Hugo Marx flashed a quick, cold smile, and departed. The newcomer addressed me in excellent English: “Have you anything to eat? I was in a devil of a hurry today. I’m as hungry as a wolf.” It was too dark on deck to see his features, but I saw enough to know that this stranger had a well-built body and broad shoulders. He was of medium height, and young. When I led him to the sailors’ mess room, which was situated on the after-part of the boat deck, a girl slipped out of the shadows and joined us.

“Who’s she?”

“My girl,” the newcomer said.

“Is she going to Canada, too?” I asked in consternation.

“Oh, no,” was the answer.

We had coffee, bread and cold beef in the mess room. I realized almost immediately that the newcomer was a communist of exceptional ability. His name was Michel Avatin, a Lett. He was a former water-front organizer for the Communist Party in Riga. He had been in Russia, and he had worked for the Comintern in England. He called himself Lambert, and he had a good British passport in that name which he handed to me for safe-keeping during the voyage. Obviously he was not of proletarian family; he gave me the impression of being the descendant of a family of officers, or of having been a cadet or a junior naval officer himself. He radiated quiet self-reliance. He knew ships. His movements were swift and his appearance rather smart. His face was smooth, clean-cut and tanned. His hair was light and silky. His eyes were a steady gray, but they had, like his nose, an indefinable Asiatic quality. His mouth was thin and hard. He was as different from Bandura as any revolutionary “activist” could possibly be. I liked him instantly. So, I felt, did he like me. In Michel Avatin I met one of the most extraordinary figures in the subterranean Apparat of the Comintern.

The girl was very young, not more than nineteen. She was small and trim, and she had a somewhat ugly but highly intelligent face. She was Jewish, and a native of Warsaw. Michel Avatin called her Malka. Her full name was Malka Stifter. They had met and fallen in love while attending a political school in Moscow a year earlier.

I found a good hiding place for Avatin. From the Montpelier’s spar-deck a vertical wooden hatch opened into cargo hold number three. At sea or in port this hatch was never used. I supplied Avatin with a blanket and a can containing a gallon of water, and arranged to lower a package of food for him through an air-shaft at a certain hour each night. This was convenient, because I was on duty during the watch from twelve to four. The cargo in hold number three consisted of English textiles, crockery and shoes in packing cases, which we arranged to form a comfortable cave below the water-line. Before he slipped into his hiding place, Avatin said to me:

“I will take Malka into my arms. Who knows, each time may be the last.”

The third mate’s cabin was empty. Two days before, the third mate had had a fight with the Montpelier’s chief officer, who was a most picturesque ruffian, with the result that the third mate deserted the ship. In the deserter’s cabin Michel and Malka had their farewell embrace while I stood outside on guard. Then Malka slipped out, waving her hand to say good-by, and hastened ashore. The blackness between the cranes and sheds swallowed her. A little later Avatin came on deck.

“I am ready,” he said.

The Montpelier left Hamburg. It took twenty days to steam from the North Sea to Panama, and twelve from Panama to San Pedro in Southern California. I read much during this voyage. The librarian of the Hamburg Port Bureau had supplied me with many books and pamphlets.

While crossing the North Atlantic, during my watches below, I would crawl at night into hold number three to pay short visits to Michel Avatin. Once he told me he had found a triangular iron scraper, and with it contrived to break open three packing cases to explore their contents. One contained shoes, and Avatin had found a pair that fitted him. The second case contained rayon stockings. The third, toys. From now on he amused himself with stuffing ladies’ stockings into Oxford shoes. Then he sorted out all the left-foot shoes, and packed them into the case which originally held only stockings. That accomplished, he closed both cases with minute care.

“Two unknown merchants are due for a nightmare,” he observed, adding: “I did not touch the toys. Toys are for children.”

Sometimes we had brief talks of a more serious nature. Michel Avatin was bound for Vancouver. He volunteered no information about his assignment there, and I asked no questions. Hugo Marx’s ominous “Why do you seek information you don’t need?” still rang in my brain. It was the fundamental law of all conspirative work that no man should know more about the secrets of his organization than was essential for him to carry out his own particular duty.

One morning, twelve days out of Hamburg, an engineer announced that a stowaway had been discovered aboard the Montpelier. I rushed on deck. There, in the brilliant sunlight, hands in pockets, stood Michel Avatin. When he saw me, he gave no sign of recognition. It appeared that before daylight two members of the engine room crew had entered number three hold on a pilfering expedition. When they came, Avatin crawled into the farthest corner of the hold. But the invaders used flashlights, and began to break open a few boxes. Either the lights were noticed on deck, or the sounds of hammering and splintering wood were heard. Officers investigated. The pilferers fled in time, but Michel Avatin was discovered.

He was quite calm about it. He was given a spare berth in the sailors’ forecastle, and was put to work with the deck-hands. But when the Montpelier entered the Panama Canal, Avatin was put in irons and locked up in a little store-room next to the chief mate’s cabin. Canal officials came aboard and questioned him. I was so nervous I could hardly keep my mind on the ship’s work and the distribution of my Spanish propaganda tracts. I put aside a chisel, a hammer and a fire-ax, and thought of ways to liberate my comrade. When the steamer nosed into the Gatun locks, I found an unguarded minute in which to speak to Avatin through the tiny porthole in his prison.

“I can give you an ax to smash the door,” I said. “I’ll make you a raft. You can jump overboard and paddle ashore.”

Michel Avatin shook his head. “I have no business in Panama,” he replied. “I am going to Vancouver.”

“All the same, they’ll keep you locked up in every port.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll get out when I want to.”

“Do you want the ax?” I asked.

“No. You may give me some tobacco.”

“All right.”

“And don’t forget,” Avatin muttered. “I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Savvy?”

“Savvy.”

Out at sea again, on the Pacific side, Avatin was released and put back to work. We avoided speaking to one another, except at night and in secluded spots. I cultivated an acquaintanceship with Sparks, the radio operator, to learn what would be done with the stowaway when the ship entered American ports. I feared he would be taken off to jail. But I was soon reassured. The usual procedure with stowaways was to lock them up aboard ship in every American port of call, and to chase them back ashore in the first European harbor. Ports of call were San Pedro, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver. Avatin decided to remain quietly aboard in all United States ports, but to make a dash for freedom in Vancouver, after lulling the Montpelier’s officers into believing that he was a peaceful and docile individual. He had given the captain a false name, and he was unafraid of impending questioning by United States immigration officials.

One of the ship’s oilers, a Hawaiian, made a duplicate key to Avatin’s prison cell from a wax impression the Lett had managed to make of the lock. In addition to the key, all Michel Avatin needed was a good file to saw through his irons when the time to escape had come. Meanwhile he made friends with almost everyone of the crew, which was not difficult since seamen have a natural respect for anyone who shows himself to be a willing and capable hand in ship’s work. Besides, Avatin was adept as a barber, a craft he had learned in a Latvian jail. Among those on whom he practiced his skill was the captain of the Montpelier himself. When the steamer dropped anchor in the outer harbor of San Pedro, to wait for the arrival of the port doctor and the customs and immigration authorities, Avatin was locked up again, but this time no irons were clamped over his wrists.

For three days the Montpelier discharged cargo in San Pedro. I contacted some of the water-front delegates of the I.W.W., and tried to convince them of the necessity to build an international revolutionary organization of seamen and dockers. I argued: “The marine industry is international, and its rulers can only be beaten by international strikes. Of what good are strikes on American ships in American ports when three-fourths of the American merchant marine is at sea or in foreign harbors? An effective strike calls for the stopping of American ships all over the world, and to do this it is imperative to have an international fighting organization of seamen. The same goes for shipping of other nations.” The Wobblies admitted that my argument was sound. “Well,” I continued, “the foundation of such an international organization has been created, with headquarters in Hamburg, and traveling organizers are on the job all over the world to spread the idea and to enlist the assistance of radical water-front groups in all important harbors.”

I did not disclose that this campaign had been inaugurated and was backed by the power of Moscow and the Comintern. That was not necessary. Once a wide range of auxiliary groups had been harnessed to the scheme, the communist units would see to it that all key positions came under communist control. Essential to the success of the plan was a penetration into the conservative International Seamen’s Union of America by adherents of the “Hamburg Program.”

At six in the morning, an hour before the regular ship’s work began, I was up again distributing leaflets and pamphlets among several thousand longshoremen who had assembled in a large shed near the water-front where the stevedore bosses recruited their men for the day. The remnants of my Spanish literature I distributed in the shack colony of “Happy Valley,” where most of the Mexican harbor workers lived. So, on each of three mornings, about two thousand pieces of Atchkanov’s propaganda found their way into the hands and—I hoped—brains of the marine workers in Los Angeles Harbor. It was clear that if this were done only once a week by delegates from various ships, the propaganda wave could soon be followed up by concrete organization. Regular Communist Party units among the water-front workers of the West Coast were still practically non-existent in 1924.

The Montpelier left San Pedro and steamed to San Francisco. Here again Michel Avatin permitted himself to be locked up and questioned by immigration officers. I paid off in San Francisco. My leave-taking from Michel Avatin was brief. I expressed misgivings as to his predicament. He answered with hard-boiled humor: “The British Empire is my pet. When it capsizes one fine day, I’m going to get a decoration in Moscow. Until then, attack and never tremble.” I returned his British passport to him, and went on my way.

“Greet my girl Malka, should you see her,” were Avatin’s parting words.

Since that foggy morning in San Francisco, Michel Avatin has crossed my path many times. But neither he nor I ever saw Malka Stifter again. Her story is one of the countless tragedies which mark the trails of Comintern campaigns.

For years Avatin roved through many parts of the British Empire, on more or less important secret missions, until, in 1929, he was trapped in London by Scotland Yard agents. With G.P.U. aid, he escaped and subsequently joined the Foreign Division of the G.P.U. Malka, meanwhile, was engaged on assignments in various countries of Eastern Europe. Unhesitatingly, she sacrificed her youth and her love to the cause. In the Comintern she won a reputation for having a natural talent for the dangerous “disintegration” work among soldiers and police. She worked in the Baltic countries, in Yugoslavia,—the graveyard of Bolsheviki,—and in Poland. The strong positions secured by the Comintern in the Polish army were largely a result of Malka’s persistent efforts. The later mutinies of 1931 in Skierniwice, Lodz, and Nova-Vileiko were due in part to Malka Stifter’s groundwork. Finally she was arrested by the political police of Poland. In violation of Party orders, Avatin made a hazardous dash to Poland to find a way to liberate his girl. He did not succeed. Reports of the treatment Malka suffered at the hands of Police Inspector Zaremba, in the prison of Lwov, kindled in Michel Avatin that monumental hatred of policemen and police spies which later transformed him into a merciless professional spy-hunter and executioner. Many weeks of torture failed to extract from Malka the names of communists engaged in Polish military work. But they broke her in the end. In the prison infirmary, she gave away the names of her comrades after Police Inspector Zaremba, a sadistic fiend, had on two occasions inserted hot pieces of iron into her sexual organ. This atrocity occurred late in December, 1930, and was repeated in the second week of January, 1931. Communists released from Lwov prison brought the report to Berlin. Georgi Dimitrov, then head of the Berlin bureau, considered Malka a traitress. But Avatin, nevertheless, caused her name to be placed on the honor roll of communist martyrs.