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
Consul-General in Egypt, and his wife. It must have been, one would
think, rather difficult for a man living in Cairo to direct "Mexican
espionage" in Soviet Russia, especially in view of the fact that the
Consul-General does not speak or understand a single word of Russian.
The circumstances of his arrest were as follows.
Count Villa's wife is a Georgian lady, _née_ Princess Karalova. In 1924
she and her husband came to the Caucasus to visit her mother, with the
permission of the Soviet Government and with their passports in order.
Unluckily, just at that time the Georgian rebellion broke out. The
Bolsheviks shot the Countess's brother, Prince Karaloff, and sent the
diplomatist and his wife to the Solovky for three years for "espionage
for the benefit of Mexico." They arrived there in February, 1925.
The Consul-General is living in the Solovky by virtue of a diplomatic
passport guaranteeing him _personal immunity!_ On his arrival in the
camp he tried to send to Mexico a full account of the outrage committed
on him by the Soviet authorities, but the Solovetsky censorship
destroyed it. Then the Count had recourse to the language of Æsop and
sent his Government a telegram which began with the words:
"I am making a very interesting tour in the north of Russia."
Evidently the fact of the Mexican diplomatist's transportation to the
Solovky is known abroad, for not long before I escaped some things were
sent to him from London by aeroplane (he had been robbed by the
Tchekists when he was arrested). He carries on an active correspondence
with Tchitcherin in French, demanding his release. But Mexico is a long
way off; she has no merchant fleet or money to lend the Soviets; and so
the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, in its polite replies to its
colleague's letters, passes over in silence the question of his
liberation. The only result of Tchitcherin's letters was that the
Consul-General was exempted from work in the camp. But Countess Villa,
like all women "K.R.'s," scrubs hut floors and washes Tchekists' shirts.
Representatives of every nation, great as well as small, may be met with
in the Solovky — Englishmen, Italians, Japanese, Frenchmen and Germans,
besides natives of lesser States. The reasons for their transportation
are as a rule shamelessly inadequate. Is seems as if the Gpu were
deliberately frightening foreigners away, so that they shall not visit
Russia, become acquainted with the country or open commercial or any
other kind of relations with it. I referred in an earlier chapter to the
case of the Hungarian manufacturer Frenckell, whom the Vneshtorg
(Foreign Trade Office) invited to Russia and then sent to the Solovky.
There have been many cases of the kind. For example, an Estonian named
Motise went to Moscow to see the All-Russian Exhibition, and was sent
straight from the Exhibition to the Solovky!
At a time when there was a Government crisis in Lithuania, and the
struggle between the political parties had reached an abnormal degree of
bitterness, a member of the defeated party fled from the country into
Soviet Russia. He was an engineer officer in the Lithuanian army. He was
completely strange to Soviet Russia and to the Communists, and believed
that he would find in the neighbouring country asylum as a political
refugee. But directly he crossed the frontier he was arrested, accused,
despite his protests, of "organising a counter-revolutionary plot and
espionage in the interests of Lithuania," and sent to the Solovky!
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.
They get the same rations as the "K.R.'s," and the work they are given
is for the most part severe.
There have lately been several attempts to escape. The would-be
fugitives have mostly been Estonians, Latvians, Finlanders and Poles.
Nogteff has, therefore, given orders that prisoners of those
nationalities shall not be taken to work outside the camps.
Attempts to escape — always unsuccessful — are punished first by cruel
torture and then by shooting (although, according to the regulations,
the maximum punishment is the prolongation of the prisoner's term of
imprisonment by one year).
In March, 1925, a Finlander attempted to escape from the Solovetsky
Monastery. He had gone to the latrine, accompanied by a sentry, climbed
over the wall and found himself on the seashore. In these latitudes
spring generally comes late, and the ice by the Kremlin was still thick
enough to bear. The Finlander fled as fast as he could towards the
woods, a little way along the coast. He was observed; the alarm was
given and shots were fired after him. Just as he had reached the woods,
where he could have hidden until he could continue his flight with
better prospects of escaping recapture, he came unexpectedly to a break
in the ice, and halted in indecision. The Tchekists caught him.
The Finlander was brought back to the camp. He was beaten for _nearly an
hour_ with such violence that the thick "Smolensky sticks" were broken.
Then, all dripping with blood, he was shot.