S. A. Malʹsagov

“ That night was veritable hell for the whole Metekh. We did not know who was marked down to be shot, so everyone expected to be shot. Nobody could get a wink of sleep till morning. The ceaseless bloodshed was a torture not only to the prisoners, but to people living in freedom outside. All the streets round the Metekh had long been uninhabited; the population of this quarter had abandoned their houses, unable any longer to listen to the shots of the executioners, the shrieks and groans of the victims.
The Tchekists in the Metekh were always drunk. They were regular butchers. ”

“ The thought of escape was always in my mind, even in the Caucasus, in the prisons of the Extraordinary Commissions of Batoum, Tiflis, Vladikavkaz and Grozny. On my arrival in the Solovky, I first began to sound the possibilities in this direction. In the concentration camps of the north, inquiries of this kind have to be made with extreme caution; the greatest delicacy must be employed in asking questions and reconnoitring the ground. You cannot tell which of the prisoners are secret agents of the Gpu and which are people who feel as you yourself do. ”

“ Almost all are completely destitute of clothing, always starving, and covered with lice. The guards beat them over the head with their rifle butts, they murder one another with bricks wrenched out of the prison walls. Completely bestialised, wherever they go they gamble away their modest payok (food ration) and their last pair of trousers at cards. This loss they make good by robbing newly-arrived prisoners belonging to the political categories. ”

“ I, in outward appearance a complete bandit, dirty and in rags, felt strange in his smart carriage, and could read on the faces of the people we met the dubious query: "Who on earth is that convict in the Chief of Police's trap?"
We were, however, not liberated immediately. It appeared that the owner of the dairy farm from which we had taken food a few days before, paying for it with only about a rouble in silver (as the people would not take our Soviet paper money) , had made a complaint against us, demanding compensation to the amount of 1,000 marks. ”

“ The criminals' curious code of ethics combines all the shpana of the Solovetsky Islands into one indivisible unit. This code of ethics is ruthlessly applied. If the criminals discover that there is a sutchenyi among their number — this word means in their language a turncoat, a traitor, who is betraying their secrets to the authorities — he is immediately put to death in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is the principle "one for all and all for one" put into application in so high a degree as among the common criminals of the Solovky. ”

“ The discipline among the Socialists in the Solovky excels even that of the shpana. They will face a hunger strike, a rebellion, even death itself almost without hesitation, to attain the object they have set before them. ”

“ Owing partly to lack of resources, partly to the ill-will of the administration of the camps and the secret instructions of the Moscow Gpu, there is in the Solovky only one really effective cure for illness — death.
The sanitary conditions in the camps are horrible. Not only are huts, kitchens, latrines, etc., in an incredible state of filth, but the Solovetsky "hospitals" themselves can truthfully be called breeding-places for epidemics. The damp, marshy locality, the bad water, and the millions of mosquitoes and lice all render powerful assistance in creating and spreading disease. ”

“ The huts in Popoff Island camp are about forty yards long and ten yards in breadth. The politicals' hut is twice as large as the others. From two hundred to three hundred persons are as a rule quartered in each hut; in Nos. 5 and 6, occupied mainly by shpana, there are over seven hundred persons.
One cannot breathe as night approaches; the stench is awful. In the evening, when the prisoners return from work, the huts, full of cracks, holes in the roofs, and draughts from all quarters, are so cold that the inmates shiver like men with fever. ”

“ The influence the female criminals have on educated women, "K.R." prisoners, can be imagined. The foulest cursing, in which the names of God, Christ, the Virgin and all the saints are called upon, universal drunkenness, indescribable debauchery, thieving, filth, syphilis — all this must in the long run be too much for the most stubborn nature.
To send an honest woman to the Solovky is to turn her in a few months into something worse than a prostitute — a piece of dumb, dirty flesh, an object of barter, at the disposal first and foremost of the camp personnel itself. ”

“ No one in the Solovky drinks so much, or drinks him- or herself into such a swinish condition, as Maria Nikolaevna. She has reached the lowest pitch of moral disintegration. And her care of the sick is what might be expected of a person in such a state. Human life, for her, has ceased to have the slightest value. The hospitals of the Solovetsky Islands are in themselves almost a guarantee that the patients who enter them will die en masse. ”

“ If one of the camp authorities requires a "first-class" woman, i.e., a young "K.R." who has not been long in the camp, he says to the sentry: "Bring me a rouble woman."
Honest women who refuse the "improved ration" which the Tchekists give their concubines very soon die of under-nourishment or tuberculosis. Such cases are particularly frequent on Solovetsky Island, where the bread usually does not last through the winter — i.e., till navigation begins and fresh supplies can be brought — and the already miserable rations are cut down by a half. ”

“ A dentist is urgently needed in the camps. It is true that there is a dentist in the Kremlin of the Solovetsky Monastery — Malivanoff, known to the reader as an A.R.A. worker, punished by the Bolsheviks in return for his services — but he has no drugs or instruments.
On Popoff Island this question is decided in a radical manner. There is a man named Brusilovsky in the camp. Before the Revolution he was a feldsher, or local surgeon; after the Revolution — a Tchekist belonging to the Gpu of Elisavetgrad, in what is now the Government of Odessa, formerly the Government of Kherson. ”

“ The hut is surrounded by a wire fence and is guarded by special sentries.
On Solovetsky Island the "politicals and party men" can walk about the island and visit each other quite freely, without guards. On Popoff Island they are taken out for exercise with a sentry, not accompanied by "K.R.'s" or ordinary criminals.
Standing much closer, in their ideology, to the Bolsheviks (if the Bolsheviks can be said to have any ideology) than the "K.R.'s" do, the politicals naturally receive a certain consideration from the Soviet authorities and have some attention paid to their needs and demands. ”

“ Every year at this time the Vtsik — thus controverting "the malignant lies of the international bourgeoisie and the shameless émigrés" about the cruelty of the Soviet power — publishes a wide amnesty to "all enemies of the ruling proletariat." The presidents of the provincial and district branches of the Gpu, by way of carrying out the directions of the humane Vtsik, shoot half their prisoners a few days before the amnesty and send the rest to the concentration camps, to which the terms of the amnesty decree state that it is not extended. ”

“ He is a tall, thin man, apparently well educated. His bearing is generally gloomy, his eyes piercing; he always wears military uniform. He is the typical rigid Communist of superior education, with an element of cruelty in his disposition. He lives in Moscow, where he has some other employment in the Gpu, and only comes to the Solovky now and then.
His deputy, who lives permanently in the Kremlin of the monastery, is the real head of the Slon in practice; the fate of the prisoners in the Solovky is completely in his hands. His name is Nogteff. ”

“ Once a week — on Tuesdays — a special commission, consisting alternately of members of the Trans-Caucasian Tcheka and the Georgian Tcheka, sat in the commandant's office in the prison and drew up a list of victims, paying no more regard to the degree to which, in each case, proof of guilt existed than to the voice of humanity. ”

“ POPOFF ISLAND CAMP Cold, Damp and Darkness — The Camp: its Geography and Amenities — Recent Improvements — Light Work for a High Bribe.
Nature herself is against the exiles. The Northern Camps for Special Purposes lie in the farthest north. The climate is severe and damp. Summer lasts only two months, or two months and a half. It is very late before the snows melt and spring comes. There are frequent gales, snowstorms, biting northerly and north-easterly winds. ”

“ I do not know how he manages the affairs of the camp, but it is manifest to everyone that Mr. Roganoff, now that he has turned his coat, is in no way different from the real Tchekists, either in his behaviour towards the prisoners or in his self-indulgent manner of living. His technical assistants, both at the monastery and on Popoff Island, are engineers recruited from among the prisoners. They are people of no importance, almost as helpless against injustice and ill-treatment as all the rest of us. ”

“ The first years of the Revolution affected the organisation and economic strength of the monastery only to an insignificant degree, lying, as it did, to one side of the main road of Bolshevist pillage. Even at the time when the British were in these parts — it will be remembered that the Archangel and Murmansk areas were for a time occupied by a Russian anti-Soviet army, under General Miller, and British troops — the monastery still lived its old industrious life. ”

“ Thus, over a hundred persons, both Russians and foreigners, were shot after the suppression of the Communist revolt of December 1st, 1924, by the Estonian Government, and a rather smaller number after the suppression of the rebellion in Bulgaria.
I gathered from the candid statements of the Tchekists that the Gpu has now no need to make a regular practice of mass shootings, because more humane measures — slow murder from starvation, work beyond the prisoners' strength, and "medical help" — are perfectly adequate substitutes. ”

“ In the monastery and on Popoff Island there are a large number of persons formerly attached to the diplomatic missions of foreign States. They are mostly Poles, Estonians, Finlanders, Latvians and Lithuanians, employees of the Legations, Consulates and missions of their respective countries, who have been arrested on the charge of "espionage" and, more rarely, "speculation."
All the foreigners live in the constant hope that their Governments will exchange them for Communists. The administration treats them cruelly. ”

“ Hardly have you set foot on the now accursed soil of the Solovky before you feel the power of the shpana. When our party, consisting of "counter-revolutionaries" from the Caucasus, bishops and monks, a group of Casino-ites and many others, arrived at hut No. 6 (the "distributing hut") , we were met by armed Tchekists, themselves prisoners. They wanted to know first of all whether there were any Gpu employees or any criminal agents among us, for if so they might not go into the hut; the ordinary criminals would kill them at once. Several men stood aside. ”

“ It is very hard to give an exact account or analysis of the prisoners labelled "K.R.'s." Their number is considerable — there are nearly three thousand on Solovetsky Island — and they are composed of such variegated elements that a general definition of a "K.R." is very hard to arrive at. A division of them into groups, even an approximate one, will enlighten the reader in a general sense as to who the "K.R.'s" are, and why they are in the Solovky, but it is bound to be incomplete; there are in the camps many "K.R.'s" whom one does not know where to place. ”

“ In the winter of 1923 the politicals at the Solovetsky Monastery, then over a thousand strong, made a skating rink near one of the caves. The camp administration observed parties of skaters on the rink singing revolutionary songs. They were ordered to stop singing, but did not obey. Then Nogteff brought a platoon of Red soldiers down to the rink and opened fire on the skaters without warning. Nine of them (six men and three women) were killed and many wounded.
The politicals declared a hunger strike and demanded that a commission of inquiry should be sent from Moscow. ”

“ The weaker prisoners die, and the stronger cannot sit or lie down for many weeks after the punishment.
Prolongation of the term of imprisonment is a punishment now comparatively seldom applied, for the simple reason that the orders recently circulated by the Gpu have made every prisoner a convict for an indefinite term. When he has served his two, three, five or ten years, he is sent on from the Solovky to the Petchersk region, then to the Narym, then to the Zyriansk, and so on, unendingly. For more serious "offences," therefore, the Tchekists send the prisoners to the "sacks." ”

“ The clergy at the Solovky, though more oppressed and humiliated by the camp authorities than any other category of prisoners, are remarkable for the submissiveness and stoicism with which they endure their moral and physical sufferings.
Being accustomed to hard bodily labour from childhood, the clergy are rightly considered to be the best workers in the camps, and from this point of view are almost valued by the administration, though it exploits them infamously. Priests are sent to do all the most exhausting tasks. ”

“ The hostility which the ordinary criminal instinctively feels towards the "K.R.", the educated barin, is felt in an equal degree by every Tchekist in the Solovky, though he also sees in each "K.R." a counter-revolutionary, a Monarchist, a bourgeois. A further reason why complaints against the shpana are fruitless is that a large part of the Solovetsky administration are closely connected with the criminal classes, not only in their mentality, but in their pre-Revolution antecedents.
When I arrived at Popoff Island, there were about 1,400 shpana in the camp ”