An Island Hell: A Soviet Prison In The Far North - free ebook by S. A. (Sozerko Artaganovich) Malʹsagov

AN ISLAND HELL: A SOVIET PRISON IN THE FAR NORTH

An Island Hell: A Soviet Prison in the Far North By S. A. MALSAGOFF Translated by F. H. LYON LONDON: A. M. PHILPOT LTD. 69, GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C.1 1926 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN....

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

I and my four companions left the Solovetsky Islands (called in this narrative the "Solovky," the name by which they are commonly known) on May 18th, 1925, and crossed the frontier between Russia and Finland on June 15th. But it was not until eight days later that we reached Kuusamo and ascertained positively that we were in Finland, so that our journey lasted thirty-six days. As I had supposed, I found that outside Soviet Russia the whole circumstances in which those transported to the Solovets

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CHAPTER I A WHITE GUARD IN THE CAUCASUS

Denikin's Failure — Guerilla Warfare — An Unexpected Blow — The Elusive Tchelokaeff — A Treaty that is Observed. Before proceeding to my main task — an account of the conditions in the Soviet prisons in the Solovetsky Islands — I should like to dwell briefly on the period of my life which immediately preceded my transportation to that place. I think that this period is of more than merely personal interest. As far as I know, the punitive activities of the Soviet power in the Caucasus after the c

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CHAPTER II A FAMOUS "AMNESTY"

My Foolish Credulity — A Boy Tchekist — Taken Out to be Shot — Mutual Reprisals — A Gallant Mountaineer — Identified by an Imbecile. In November, 1922, in honour of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917, the Council of People's Commissaries of the R.S.F.S.R. [3] (Russia then still lived under that pseudonym) extended a full amnesty to all opponents of the Soviet power. This amnesty, which was signed by the flower of the Communist Party, formally promised complete oblivion of every ma

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CHAPTER III HORRORS OF TIFLIS PRISON

Prince Mukhransky's Resolve — The Metekh — In the Hands of Sadists — A Shunned Locality — "Shooting Nights" — A Biter Bit. Among the thousands of persons imprisoned in the gaols of the Trans-Caucasian Tcheka at the same time as myself were fifteen officers, among them General Tsulukudze, Prince Khimshieff, and Prince Mukhransky, whose brother was married to the daughter of the Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovitch. They were all charged with organising a mythical counter-revolutionary plot and

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CHAPTER IV BOUND FOR THE "SOLOVKY"

Finally "Amnestied!" — The "Shpana" — A Lucky Escape — Classification of Prisoners — Madame Kameneff's Protegees. At last, on November 30th, 1923, i.e., seven months after I had been "amnestied" by the Batoum Tcheka, the examining judge of the Vladikavkaz Tcheka finally "amnestied" me in the following terms: "By order of the administrative exile commission of the People's Commissariat for Home Affairs, Citizen S. A. Malsagoff, having been found guilty of offences against the State of the nature

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CHAPTER I THE FORERUNNERS OF THE "SOLOVKY"

Conditions in Earlier Camps — The "White House" — 100,000 Shot — Mass Drownings — A Commission of Inquiry — Survivors Removed to Solovetsky Islands. Until late in 1922, Kholmogory [11] and Portaminsk performed the function now discharged by the Solovky. When I reached the Solovky at the beginning of 1924, I met a number of men, the survivors of the "K.R." prisoners in the concentration camps at these places. They had been transferred to the Solovky in August, 1922. I should like to state briefly

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CHAPTER II FROM MONASTERY TO PRISON CAMP

The Famous Solovetsky Monastery — Its Wealth and Economic Strength — The Bolshevist Invasion — Destruction and Pillage — Organisation of the Solovky — The Camps and their Rulers. The "Solovetsky" concentration camp received its name from the Solovetsky Monastery, founded in 1429 by Saints Sabbatius and Hermann, while Saint Zosima built the first church in 1436. The island, seventeen miles long by eleven broad, on which the monastery stands, is one of a group known by the collective designation S

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CHAPTER III A GALLERY OF TCHEKISTS

Convicted Tchekists as Prison Staff — The "Public Prosecutor" — A Foreign Visitor's Fate — Bela Kun's Right Hand Man — "Smolensky Sticks" — Moscow Prison Riot — The "Mother" of the Criminals — An Unpunished Peculator. In March, 1924, a so-called "change of cabinet" took place. I will speak of this later, and continue my portraits of the ministers in the earlier combination. Boky, Nogteff, Eichmans, Gladkoff — these were the men who had the power. They were sent to the Solovky from Moscow by Dshe

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CHAPTER IV 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. For three-quarters of the year the Solovetsky Monaste

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CHAPTER V THE TYRANNY OF THE CRIMINALS

The "Distributing Hut" — Robbed the First Night — Criminals' Unwritten Code — Punishment of a Traitor — The Professor's Parcel — Successful Blackmail. All newly arrived prisoners are sent first of all to the "distributing hut" of the camp on Popoff Island. 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, ar

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CHAPTER VI "COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES"

Hardest Labour Done by "K.R.'s" — Counter-revolutionary: a Comprehensive Term — A Variegated Multitude — Special Persecution of the Clergy — Prominent Clerical Prisoners. On Solovetsky Island the "politicals and party men" live in separate cells — hermits' caves — and on Popoff Island in a special hut. Both at the monastery and in the Kem camp the "K.R.'s" live in company with the ordinary criminals. The cells of the monastery and the huts of the camps are filled to overflowing with a carefully

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CHAPTER VII THE TCHEKA'S VICTIMS: SOME STRANGE CASES

A Wife and her Husband — Annual "Amnesty" Swindle — Boris Savinkoff's Terrible End — Famine Relief a Crime — Dzerzhinsky in a New Light — An Indefatigable Vermin-hunter — Aged Hostages Tortured. The grounds for which people have been transported to the Solovky are so various, and very often so completely baseless, that one cannot help supposing them to be pure inventions of the Tchekist "jurisprudence." For example, among the prisoners there is the aged Countess Frederiks. During the war, as a R

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CHAPTER VIII "POLITICALS": A FAVOURED CLASS

Modern Cave Dwellers — Why They are Better Treated — Cultural Privileges — Socialists' Courage and Discipline — Hunger Strikes — Common Criminals "Unloaded" — A Remarkable Soviet Pamphlet. The "politicals and party men" on Solovetsky Island at the present time number about five hundred, including a hundred and fifty women and several dozen children. Children are placed on the same footing as adult prisoners as regards rights and obligations, and so receive rations. On Popoff Island there are now

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CHAPTER IX THE WOMEN'S FATE

Horrible Companionship — How Card Losses are Paid — A Tchekist's Harem — "Rouble" and "Half-rouble" Women — Venereal Diseases. But the greatest blessing the politicals enjoy is that their wives and children are not compelled to associate with the women of the shpana . The company of these women is horrible. There are at present about six hundred women in the Solovetsky camps. At the monastery they are quartered in the "Women's Building" in the Kremlin; on Popoff Island they occupy the whole of h

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CHAPTER X FOREIGN PRISONERS

Espionage for Mexico! — A Cryptic Message — Gpu Tactics — Attempts to Escape Savagely Punished. Most of the foreigners in the Solovky were sent there on the charge of "espionage for the benefit of the international bourgeoisie " (Clause 66). Sometimes a second clause is brought into action as well as Clause 66, quite groundlessly; the Tchekist "jurisprudence" is most skilful in discovering a crime where there is not the shadow of one. Among the prisoners in the Solovky are Count Villa, Mexican C

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CHAPTER XI A "CHANGE OF CABINET"

Kem Camp's New Rulers — A Military Parade — A Much-Married Tchekist — Old Abuses Continued. In the spring of 1924 the personnel of the concentration camp on Popoff Island was changed. The members of the Uslon (Direction of the Northern Camps for Special Purposes) and, at the monastery itself, all the Tchekists remained at their posts. This was what the prisoners called the "change of cabinet." A Moscow Tchekist, Ivan Ivanovitch Kirilovsky, formerly a sergeant in one of the Guards regiments, was

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CHAPTER XII DAILY LIFE, WORK AND FOOD

"A Place in the Lamp-light" — "Outside" and "Inside" Work — No Exemption for Illness — Horrors of Wood-cutting — How We were Fed — Prisoners Starved and Government Cheated. 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

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CHAPTER XIII HOSPITAL HORRORS

Hospitals Without Drugs — "Prisoners Must Not be Ill" — A Madwoman in Command — Mortality among Prisoners Encouraged — A Kindly Tchekist. The "Medpomoshtsh" [34] (medical help) in the Solovetsky Islands is in fact medical helplessness. 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 horribl

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CHAPTER XIV HOW "USEFUL CITIZENS" ARE MADE

Chief Punishments — A Freezing Dungeon — "To the Mosquitoes!" — A Mediæval Torture — Mass Shootings No Longer Necessary. The leaders of the Communist Party declare that the Northern Camps for Special Purposes are something in the nature of a reformatory. The punishments administered in these establishments, they would have the world believe, are intended to make the prisoners mend their ways and become useful citizens of the Soviet Republic. In reality, the camp punishments, like the camp medica

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CHAPTER XV HOW THE TCHEKISTS LIVE

Luxurious Proletarians — Merry Gatherings at Kem — A Revolting Orgy — "Holding the Banner of Communism Aloft" — How Criminals are Released. The concentration camp on Solovetsky Island is guarded by the 3rd Escort Regiment of the Gpu troops (300 rifles strong), and that on Popoff Island by the 95th Division of the Gpu troops (150 strong). In spite of the good food they receive, scurvy rages among the Red soldiers, as does also syphilis. The soldiers, with the exception of those on duty guarding t

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CHAPTER I THE ONLY WAY OUT

Bolshevist Hypocrisy — Prisoners for Life — The Student Nikolaeff's Escape — Failure of other Attempts. The foreign workmen who come to Moscow in batches are given to understand by the Soviet Government that it, of course, is against the Solovky; it is willing to admit that the Solovky are a discredit to the "humane" rule of the workers and peasants. But, it asks, what is to be done? —— the counter-revolutionaries continue their struggle with the Soviet power, and so the Gpu insists on the maint

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CHAPTER II LAYING OUR PLANS

Cautious Reconnaissance Work — Bezsonoff's Arrival — Our Party Made Up — Elaborate Contrivance Necessary — A Critical Moment. 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 mu

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CHAPTER III OUR FLIGHT: THE FIRST STAGE

An Initial Success — Covering our Tracks — Bezsonoff as Dictator — Traces of our Pursuers — A Trap. We cut wood till 8 a.m. At that hour a goods train came from Popoff Island to Kem; it would have been dangerous to try to escape before then. When the train had disappeared, Bezsonoff gave the signal arranged long before — he turned up his collar. We flung ourselves on the soldiers from behind. We succeeded in disarming one of them immediately. The other pushed away Malbrodsky and Sazonoff, whose

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CHAPTER IV A TERRIBLE MARCH

Sazonoff as Raft-builder — A Bitter Disappointment — A Hay-maker's Larder — We Pillage a Communist's Farm — A Narrow Shave — Sazonoff's Swimming Achievement. We recommenced our exhausting journey through the marshes, covered with thick scrub. We had no food. Despair took the place of hope in our hearts. Time after time we fell down from exhaustion and weariness. My frost-bitten feet caused me fearful torment. We continued to follow the river Kem almost due south, then turned west. Thus, falling

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CHAPTER V FREEDOM

Linguistic Difficulties — Joyful Certainty — Bezsonoff's Diary — Finnish Peasant's Claim for Damages — A Friend in Need — Free at Last. We had not a dry thread on us. Our cartridges were soaked. Our fingers shook with cold, we could not speak to one another. To crown all, our small supply of bread had run out. Luckily, a couple of days later we came upon a deer in the woods, and Bezsonoff, who had contrived, unlike the rest of us, to keep his ammunition dry, shot it. In our joy we ate half of it

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