Vyshinsky: Accused Bukharin, is it a fact or not that a group of your confederates in the North Caucasus was connected with Whiteguard émigré Cossack circles abroad? Is that a fact or not? Rykov says it is…

Bukharin: If Rykov say it is, I have no grounds for not believing him…

Vyshinsky: Answer me “No.”

Bukharin: I cannot say “No,” and I cannot deny that it did take place.

Vyshinsky: So the answer is neither “Yes” nor “No”?…

Bukharin: From the point of view of mathematical probability it can be said, with very great probability, that it is a fact. […]

Vyshinsky: I ask you, did you endorse them or not?

Bukharin: I repeat, Citizen Procurator: since I did not disavow them, I consequently endorsed them.

Vyshinsky: Consequently, you endorsed them?

Bukharin: If I did not disavow them, consequently I endorsed them.

Vyshinsky: That is what I am asking you. That is to say you endorsed them?

Bukharin: So then “consequently” is the same as “that is to say”?

Vyshinsky: What do you mean, “that is to say”?

Bukharin: That is to say, I endorsed them.

From Maurice Merleau Ponty’s Humanism and Terror, Boston: Beacon Press, 1969, p. 53 and p. 59.