“THE PRIDE AND THE JOY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY”
How naturally instinct leads the dregs of all political parties
and all shades of political opinion to gravitate to, and hang
about, the Tuileries!--HERZEN, 1850.
Once Zinoviev said: “The Che-Ka is the pride and the joy of the
Communist Party”: but though commendation is a matter of personal
opinion, I myself believe that Latzis came nearer to the truth when he
said: “The Che-Ka is at least the best that Soviet institutions can
evolve,”--and thereby pronounced the death warrant of Sovietism.
One of the prime causes of the degeneration of Che-Ka activity into
tyranny and violence was the quality of the Che-Ka _personnel_.
Political fanaticism alone will not explain the horrors which I have
described. It is only sadists and madmen, it is only social elements
which life has rejected, and greed of gain and lust of power have
attracted, that can engage in bloodshed on such a colossal scale. Yet
the mentality even of a healthy-minded individual would have broken
down amid the atmosphere of orgy which has prevailed in Russia for five
years past: and therefore a type study of the sort of functionary who
figured on, and was employed by, Che-Kas is bound to offer both the
alienist and the historian a most interesting field of investigation.
Yes, only a sadist could find pleasure in such bloody work, or in
singing the praises of such work as once the author of some doggerel
verses called “The Che-Ka’s Smile” sang them in Tiflis when he declared
that:
“No richer joy, no sweeter sound, exists
Than sound of life cut short, and bones a-crack.
My eyes grow dim, my heart cries breathlessly:
‘Away! Against the wall! And shoot!’”
For we all know how cruelty may mate with sensuality, and an Eidouk
show himself equally capable of writing hysterical rubbish and of
slaying his fellows for a “revolutionary cause.” And we know that from
the first the Che-Kas were forced to draw their staffs mainly from the
criminal population, and that Dzherzhinsky’s memorandum of February
17, 1922, saying that “the punitive apparatus of a revolutionary
authority should be constituted of an institute of revolutionary judges
and prosecutors chosen by the people, and vested with an integrity of
crystal spotlessness (seeing that they are the functionaries in whose
hands the supreme authority is to repose),” was setting forth, in this
connection, things as they ought to have been rather than things as
they were. Yet the memorandum continues:
In point of fact, the _personnel_ of our Che-Kas is a
_personnel_ chosen with great care from amongst tested
members of the Communist Party. Hence that _personnel_
consists of individuals incorruptible of idea, and
irreproachable of antecedent. Only by employing such persons
could our Che-Kas hope to perform the duties which the
revolutionary proletariat has entrusted to their charge.
Well, even if we take it as a fact that there was a single word of
truth in this, the atmosphere of tyranny which soon spread over the
country would still have ended by demoralising not only any “institute
of judges” of the kind mentioned, but also every decent element
amongst the population. Nay, Latzis, the Che-Ka’s own statistician,
himself had to admit that constant changes of Che-Ka employees were
found necessary.
However honest a Che-Ka employee may be, and however
crystal-pure his heart, the conditions of Che-Ka work are such
as in time to affect his nervous system, and to atrophise his
ethical sense. Indeed, many a young Communist has thereby been
prevented from forming his character, and set upon the road of
moral deterioration.
One such young Communist, an ex-plumber in the employ of the Che-Ka of
Yaroslav as a “people’s prosecutor,” began his work well, but, later,
took to liquor. And he had a friend who played the accordion, and the
pair would drink in company. And it was mostly when he was drunk that
he did his questioning of prisoners, whilst his accordion-playing
friend sat by him to keep up his spirits. Yet so illiterate was this
ex-plumber “people’s prosecutor” that he could not even inscribe his
sentences of death, but had to scrawl across the paper, “To be put out
as a White.”
The All-Russian Che-Ka held its sessions in Moscow, and constituted
a state within a state, and could requisition blocks (indeed, scores
of blocks) of buildings for its exclusive use, and maintain its
own tailor’s establishment, laundry, restaurant, toilet saloon,
boot-maker’s shop, locksmith’s forge, larders, and cellars--the latter,
of course, well stocked with the best of “confiscated” food and wine.
And it was not only actual members of the Che-Ka that could make use
of these amenities without incurring an obligation to render account.
The Che-Ka’s employees could do the same. Hence, when everyone else
was going hungry the Che-Ka member or employee would be receiving
his ration of sugar and butter and flour and the rest, whilst every
theatre in the place had to send the Che-Ka free tickets for every
performance. And practically the same obtained in the provinces,
where everywhere we see the local Che-Ka occupying the most desirable
premises. When a body of that sort was instituted at Sebastopol it, as
a matter of course, took possession of Kist’s Hotel, whilst, as regards
Odessa, the local Che-Ka built a whole settlement for its own benefit,
and speedily caused to spring up there every species of establishment
likely to conduce to the comfort of a “citizen,” from a barber’s shop
to a cinema palace. The Che-Ka of Zhitomir, again, had its own dramatic
society.[259] And though a correspondent wrote to the _Obstchoyé
Dielo_ that “the drunken sailor and the small boy with belt and
huge revolver, our two hitherto types of Che-Ka employee, are becoming
things of the past, and replaced with people’s prosecutors of urbane
address and legal, or budding legal, origin,” the change seemed the
more revolting, so terribly did the sleek, flashy aspect of the fellows
who now held power of life and death over their fellow men clash with
the universal popular impoverishment.
“The name of our Che-Ka must not only become famous. It must also
become, and remain, innocent of spot.” How was this going to be
achieved when Moscow alone contained twenty thousand Che-Ka agents
drawing special rations, and organised into a host of cliques? As
early as the year 1919 the All-Russian Che-Ka had come to have 2000
persons on its personal staff, with three-fourths of them natives of
Latvia. Indeed, Letts, from the beginning, obtained, and retained, a
special position in this regard, and would be engaged by Che-Kas in
batches of whole families, and render those Che-Kas faithful service.
Thus our modern Letts might be likened to the ancient mercenaries.
So much was this the case that the Muscovite Che-Ka came to be known
as “the Lettish Colony.” _A propos_ of the attraction which the
institutions of Moscow had for Latvia’s population, the _Bulletin_
of the Left Social Revolutionary Party remarked: “Letts flock to the
Extraordinary Commission of Moscow as folk emigrate to America, and for
the same reason--to make their fortunes.” And the fact that very few
Letts knew a single word of Russian was in no way held to disqualify
those immigrants from being entrusted with inquisitions and domiciliary
searches, or even with the filling in of returns. Whence arose amusing
anecdotes not wholly amusing to the victims.
The truth is that, on the Bolshevists sending out a call for
“idealists,” there looked up to them mostly the scum of the population,
until Krylenko himself had to admit that “into the Che-Kas there have
crept criminal elements.” For that matter, could it reasonably be
expected that an ex-circus clown and an ex-brothel keeper should remain
the only officiants of their kind?[260] And though it may not have been
the invariable rule that Che-Ka employees were criminals (for example,
Douzirev, the Grand Duke Vladimir’s ex-coachman, who took service
under the Che-Ka of Odessa, may conceivably have been an otherwise
respectable man) the fact remains that, as time went on, persons of the
thief-murderer-swindler type insinuated themselves in large numbers
into the best posts, and there exist scores of instances to that
effect. Some of these instances are to be found in _The Che-Ka_.
For example, once it was found that the headquarters of a gang of
burglars which had been operating in the town of Ekaterinodar was the
residence of the local “people’s prosecutor,” and that a certain Albert
who had been in the employ of the local Che-Ka’s detective department,
and sent to the University of Kuban at the expense of the League of
Communist Youth, had been the gang’s principal leader. And there are
instances of the same kind in the materials collected by the Denikin
Commission, so that they constitute a perfect picture gallery of past
and present malefactors. Nay, it fell to the lot of the Muscovite
Che-Ka itself to discover that certain of its principals were not
unconnected with cases of “banditism” which occurred; whilst in 1919
an employee of the Odessan Che-Ka revealed the fact that “criminals
amongst us have been forging orders for carrying out domiciliary
searches, and extracting money from victims, and robbing them,” whilst
the victims in question had actually been employees of the Che-Ka’s
own “operative department”! In fact (partially, perhaps, owing to
the southerliness of its climate) Odessa furnished more instances of
“banditism” on the part of Soviet-commissioned officials than any other
locality in Russia; and once a local lawyer, when questioned on the
point by Denikin’s Commission, replied:
In this part of the world it has never taken long for our
criminal elements to become adapted to Soviet rule, for they
seem to have a natural affinity for it. Recently there arose
a rumour that “Comrade Michael,” the secretary of our Che-Ka,
was none other than the notorious thief known as “Mishka[261]
the little Japanese”; and though the authorities straightway
published an official _démenti_ of the rumour (they did
so in No. 47 of the _Izvestia_), to say that “Mishka, the
little Japanese” had no connection whatsoever with the Che-Ka’s
secretary, no more than a few days had passed before there
was published in the papers (the _Communist_, I think,
was one of them) a letter from Michael Vinitsky (“Mishka the
Little Japanese”) himself, to say that, whatever else he might
have been in the past, he had been a lifelong protagonist of
Communist ideals, and _robbed only the bourgeois_. And
with that “Comrade Michael” (Vinitsky) launched himself upon
a Communistic career in earnest, and transformed his band of
ex-thieves and burglars into a “Fifty-Fourth Soviet Regiment,”
and created himself the regiment’s commanding officer, and,
when the general mobilisation of local Communists took place,
co-opted to the post of the regiment’s political commissary the
“Comrade Feldmann” who, throughout, had been the life and soul
of the Che-Ka’s executive committee.[262]
Again, an ex-burglar of Odessa, one Kotovsky,[263] was appointed to
the command of a Red Division.[264] Yet at least this fellow displayed
a certain amount of decency in his new post, whereas, as a rule, his
kind soon harked back to their original bestiality, and, sometimes, to
their original job. Thus a certain Ossip Letny acted for a while as
administrative chief at Tsaritsin, but left that post in order again
to head a band which carried out countless robberies and murders.
And in January 1921 one Khadzhi-Elias, president of a revolutionary
tribunal, had to be shot for having taken part in an organisation
for perpetrating extortion and theft under cover of the phrase
“Warfare against Counter-Revolution,” even though up to the time of
his detection he had been allowed to conduct trials solely according
to his “revolutionary sense,” and to pass sentences of death on his
own responsibility, and to carry them out with his own hand. The
number of killings which he is said thus to have perpetrated is truly
appalling.[265]
On one occasion the Che-Ka’s _Weekly_ asserted that “the late
_bourgeois_ dispensation had for its principal adjuncts corruption
and forgery.” Would the journal repeat the statement, now that the
Soviet Government has had actually to organise “weeks for combating
bribery”?
Then, to touch briefly upon the trial of a man called Kossarev. This
man had been a member of the Committee of Inspection and Control, a
body formed to review the “legality” or otherwise of decrees issued
by the provincial Che-Kas. Yet now, when arraigned before the Supreme
Revolutionary Tribunal on a charge of having substituted a car-load of
firewood for a car-load of frozen meat, he was found to have served a
previous sentence of ten years in the Siberian mines for having robbed
and murdered an old woman! And in 1922, when the Revolutionary Tribunal
of Moscow tried a certain Taraboukin, an ex-bandit, and the president
of one of the provincial tribunals, for extortion, it found that he
and a friend had once murdered a jeweller, and stolen twenty million
roubles-worth of stock!
Thus the Bolshevists could be ruthless towards their own agents: but
they were so only when those agents had been _too_ brazen in
their robbing or accepting of bribes. Wherefore cases of the sort
formed the exception rather than the rule. As a rule, an official
could commit an offence with impunity, for always it was found that,
though appeals might be presented for “extinction of the rascals who
are wrecking our Soviet system” (an appeal of the sort being presented
by, in particular, Zachs, whilst serving as Dzherzhinsky’s temporary
substitute on the Muscovite Che-Ka),[266] it had to be realised that
those “rascals” had become indispensable to the system. Indeed, I could
cite many cases where officials were charged with offences, sentenced
to death, released, and given superior posts.
The Head of the Petrograd Che-Ka once proudly told a meeting of
Che-Kas of the Northern Region that was held during the October of
1918 that “My Che-ka looks with disapproval upon the methods of the
old Secret Police, and particularly disapproves of the employment of
_agents-provocateurs_”: whereas the truth is that, beginning with
the case of the Mr. Lockhart whom Peters invited to attend a fictitious
meeting of a fictitious “Committee of White Guards” (later even the
_Pravda_ admitted that it had been a fictitious committee), the
working of the Che-Ka’s “punitive apparatus” was carried on exclusively
by means of an officially (and clumsily) organised and sanctioned
and operated system of _provocation_. Thus, the fifth paragraph
of a secret Order issued by the Special Branch over Dzherzhinsky’s
signature on December 5, 1920, recommended that, “for the detection
of foreign agencies in our territories, there be organised pretended
White Guard associations.” And this circular would seem to have been
present to Latzis’ mind when he inspired a special Kievan piece of
political _provocation_ which was worked by pseudo “Chilean” and
“Brazilian” “Consuls” (who, in reality, of course, were employees of
the provincial Che-Ka), and adopted for its plan of operations offers
to help refugees to escape abroad, and those refugees’ subsequent
betrayal as “counter-revolutionaries.” The upshot was that in due
course the _Krasny Mech_, or “Red Sword” (the organ of the
Political Department of the All-Ukrainian Che-Ka) published (on August
18, 1918) a statement that a huge counter-revolutionary conspiracy had
been brought to light under “Count Albert Petrovich Pirro, Brazilian
Minister to the Ukrainian Soviet Government,” and that this “Count
Pirro” and four confederates had been shot, and that investigations
with regard to certain others connected with the affair were now in
progress. Well, certainly a lady of the name of Poplavskaya _was_
shot at that period, for having “prepared to travel to France and
warn M. Clemenceau of an impending visit of Communists for secret
propaganda”; but we know that no “Count Pirro,” as such, can have been
put to death, for the reason that the “Count” was none other than
an _agent provocateur_ employed by the Che-Ka--though to this
day the precise identity of the Che-Ka employee who impersonated the
pseudo-diplomatist has been kept a secret.
Again, in 1920 some foreign-published Russian journals issued accounts
of Odessan doings of a “Baroness Stern,” who resembled “Count Pirro”
in so far as that her proceedings at least smacked of Bolshevist
_provocation_. For no sooner had she landed at Odessa from
Constantinople than local Bolshevist leaders hastened to fête her as
a zealous Communist, and to cause her every utterance to be quoted
in the press, even in the _Izvestia_ itself. Then she disclosed
to the German Consular Agent her “real mission.” She had come from
Germany, she said, on behalf of the International Red Cross, and was
charged to help any German subjects in Russia towards repatriation if
they wished, _and to supply any Russian subjects who might desire to
join the party with false passports_. _Only_, the lady said,
those Russian subjects must first hand over to her their valuables,
lest those valuables should be confiscated, _en route_, by the
Bolshevists. And, for the rest, the day for departure having been
appointed, the Che-Ka stepped in, and arrested all those who had
accepted the fictitious offers of help.
And another counterpart of our “Count Pirro” was a “Representative of
the Danish and Swedish Red Crosses” who took such an interest in White
Guard activities as a hobby that he tried to get into communication
with certain persons known to myself, and did succeed in doing so as
regards such of them as were simple enough to let themselves be landed
in the gentleman’s toils.
Also a trial of refugees at Anapa was engineered by
_agents-provocateurs_ in the employment of the Che-Ka of Vladikavkaz.
First that Che-Ka induced refugees to attempt to escape from Anapa
to Batoum; and then it caused them to be arrested and shot by the
district Che-Ka of Ter. The procedure was the usual one. The first
party of refugees (twelve of them) was taken in hand by a “Colonel
Baron Zussermann,” and accorded, in the half-way town of Vladikavkaz,
a hospitable official welcome, with good quarters and entertainment,
and, after supper, a visit to the town’s theatres and cinema palaces.
The only unfortunate circumstance was that the refugees were unaware
that the address of “Colonel Baron Zussermann” was also the address
of the head of the local Che-Ka. And when a still larger party (of
about a hundred) was organised the tragi-comedy ended in the usual
shootings.[267]
In the _Posledniya Novosty_ of February 7, 1922, we find a description
of the method by which, in 1921, certain places near the Bessarabian
frontier caught _bourgeois_ and White Guards when trying to escape
abroad. The affair would begin by certain “relatives” of the fugitive
sending him a “trustworthy person” with a commission to see to the
fugitive’s safe-conduct out of Russia; but always it would come about
that, whether by accident or otherwise, both the “trustworthy person”
and the “letter of recommendation” fell, _en route_, into the hands
of the Roumanian Che-Ka; whereupon that Che-Ka would send another
“trustworthy person” with another “letter of recommendation,” and that
person would call upon the refugee concerned, and, after arranging for
his journey, and obtaining sufficient evidence against him, carry out
the usual arrest.
It has been stated,[268] too, that the commissary attached to the
medical mission that was tried in Moscow during the summer of 1920, and
shot under heart-rending circumstances, was not a commissary at all,
but an _agent-provocateur_. And certainly the so-called Evstafievskaya
Street conspiracy of Odessa in 1921 was organised by the keeper of
the local Che-Ka prison,[269] and the Tagantsev trial in Petrograd by
a sailor named Pankov. And beyond a doubt _provocation_ was employed
in the affair of the Petrograd co-operative employees, and again in
the huge pro-Polish conspiracy that was unearthed in Smolensk in
1921, when over 1500 persons were arrested. Also, eye-witnesses have
stated in connection with the rising in the Ishona region in 1921 that
_agents-provocateurs_ figured in officers’ uniforms at the sessions of
the Omsk Che-Ka, and that a similar ruse was used to foment the Saratov
rising of Social Revolutionaries and Menshevists in March of the same
year.[270] In this regard, a peculiarly instructive case is the case
of the Anarchists Lev Cherny, Fanny Baron, and others, who, in 1921,
were shot for alleged forgings of Soviet notes. In their pamphlet
concerning the trial the Anarchists of Berlin wrote:
There can be no doubt that our murdered comrades had no
connection whatsoever with the criminal offence whose imputation
brought about their execution. Nor can there be any doubt that
the idea of issuing the forged notes emanated from the Muscovite
Che-Ka itself. In fact, the method of working the affair was
that two agents of the Che-Ka (Steiner, _alias_ Kamenny, and a
chauffeur) first attached themselves to a group of _genuine_
forgers, and then scraped acquaintance with our Anarchist
comrades in order that, to betray them, they might see to the
forging of the notes, and to the notes’ utterance--the whole
being done with the knowledge of, and by the instructions of,
the Che-Ka of Moscow.
To realise how likely this hypothesis is we need only recall the
telegram with regard to Anarchists sent to Rakovsky.
And a correspondent wrote to the _Obstchoyé Dielo_:
Here, in Odessa, the provincial Che-Ka has formed a new
department, a statistical branch acting for the Commissariat
of Public Health, the real purpose of which is to organise
espionage abroad, and to suppress “military counter-revolution”
at home. The new departure has been officially inaugurated
in Konelsky’s old villa in Fontannaya Street, and has had
placed at its head the notorious Zakovsky--a Lett, a member
of the All-Russian Che-Ka, and a member of the praesidium of
the provincial Che-Ka; whilst the highly responsible post of
Ukrainian Resident on behalf of Bessarabia and Galicia and
Poland has been given to Mikhailovsky, an employee whom the
Muscovite Che-Ka dispatched to Odessa to act as local “Special
Agent” in company with his mistress, Ksenia Vladimirovna
Mikhailovskaya (_née_ von Gerngross), a colonel’s daughter,
and rejoicing also in the nicknames of “Lialka” and “Adochka.”
And, with her paramour, this woman (as “Assistant Ukrainian
Resident on behalf of etc., etc.,” and “Member of the Military
Espionage Section in the All-Russian Registration Department”)
controls a whole network of secret service, a network covering
both Bessarabia and the Polish frontier region, and (like her
_souteneur_ and her employees) lives well, denies herself
nothing, and justifies her existence by instigating occasional
“conspiracies against the Soviet Government.” Lately, for
example, she and hers professed to have discovered a “White
Guard espionage system.” But they themselves had organised the
system, for “Adochka” is pretty enough to be able to scrape
acquaintanceships with officers, and to tell them (quite
innocently) that an “officers’ association” exists for their
benefit, and to prove her assertion by letting her victims read
a forged “secret appeal for a combination of forces against
Bolshevism, to the end that that tottering and detested Power
may fall,” and to back up that “appeal” with a reference to
Wrangel’s advance from Roumania. It need hardly be said that the
place where the “appeal” is typed is the new statistical branch
of the Commissariat of Public Health. However, if any officer
persists in being stupid enough to distrust such “proof,”
“Adochka” then tenders him a sum of money purporting to emanate
from a mysterious “organisation for assisting officers in
distress”--which may or may not induce him to set his remaining
doubts at rest, and to depart and tell his friends about the
equally illegal and fictitious “organisation” referred to, and
to form a group of persons willing to join that “organisation,”
or at least to further its aims. Well, if the officer does that,
then the desired end has been achieved, and, for its completion,
the detestable piece of treachery needs but the appearance of
employees sent by the Che-Ka, some arrests, and some shootings.
For a while, also, the All-Russian Che-Ka maintained a staff of
prostitutes for _provocation_ purposes. And in the same connection
it utilised even children of from twelve to fourteen years of age,
and rewarded them with money and presents and sweets. Again, it would
permit prisoners (hundreds of cases of this occurred) to purchase their
lives by entering the Che-Ka’s secret service. The tragedies that
resulted from this practice! Once a young lady who accepted service
of the kind, to save her father from being shot, fell a prey to such
consequent remorse as to burn herself alive. And one of a famous series
of essays, entitled “Russia of To-Day,” which appeared in the London
_Times_ tells of the self-hanging of a woman who had laid false
information.[271] Particularly extensive was the _provocation_
directed against the lower strata of the population; wherefore the
“Workers’ Opposition” within the Communist Party spoke no more than
the truth when it said that to Russia’s labouring classes Communist
_nuclei_ were known as “Communist bloodhound-kennels.” “Brood
hens,” _agents-provocateurs_, swarmed also in the prisons, where
they procured countless trials for accepting bribes, and for forgery
and theft, and countless death sentences--for which last they were
paid at a percentage rate, whilst, should the case happen to include
peculation, the “people’s prosecutor” concerned received 10 per cent.
of the sum alleged, as a reward for his share in having “discovered”
the crime. I myself had personal knowledge of such a “discovery.”
In the instance referred to, two “people’s prosecutors” attended an
entertainment given by a Mr. R. and his wife, and induced them to
become confidential. Then they arrested them. And when the wife sent
word of the occurrence to a lawyer friend of her husband’s, and the
lawyer approached the praesidium of the Che-Ka, he, to his surprise,
found himself added as a third prisoner, on the charge that he had
dared to address the Che-Ka without previously obtaining permission. In
the end he was exiled to Novospassk.
And, according to _The Che-Ka_, it was quite a common thing for
Che-Ka employees purposely to carry out domiciliary searches, and
mass arrests and ambushes, as a means of supplying themselves with
additional stocks of the amenities of life: so that on December 9,
1919, the Soviet of Moscow itself had to admit in its press that “it
has been found that houses used by our agents for organising ambushes
never fail to be left stripped to the basement.” For, as I have already
shown, these Che-Ka staffs were, for the most part, mere gangs of
thieves. Yet whenever gangs of the sort were seen to be in danger of
exposure they found powerful defenders in the real instigators of the
crimes, in the leading officials of the local Che-Ka. On September
22, 1918, Peters wrote in No. 2 of the _Weekly_: “Recently
certain enemies of the Soviet Government have been spreading tales
that Communists are guilty of bribes-taking, corruption, and false
witness. But do not let this depress us. True, a few cases of abuse
in this way may have occurred; yet all that that means is that the
New Man has not yet had time to acquire the legal sense.” Then Peters
added: “Besides, we may rest assured that all such calumnies are but
slanderous lies of _bourgeois_ production.” And this a lesser
light capped with the self-satisfied words: “Charges of the sort are
only a proof of our strength, for we are both clever and practical, and
have no need to grease the palms of persons weaker than ourselves.”
Yet why should Mr. Alston have written to Lord Curzon: “Frequently
arrested persons have to bail themselves out several times over, under
a threat of death,” or the Che-Kas of Kuban and Odessa have organised a
regular industry of throwing persons into gaol, and reaping a monetary
harvest from their release?[272] Nor did Moscow form any exception to
the rule of corruption, and the Che-Ka of Tiraspol systematically
smuggled refugees across the frontier, and the same was done by other
Che-Kas conveniently near the boundary line. In this connection the
_Posledniya Novosty_ of February 7, 1922, declared the Roumanian
Che-Ka to be taking the lead in such doings, and went on:
In every small town and village on the Dnieper a swarm of
“bookers” exist who, for a fee, will convey fugitives over to
Bessarabia “as safely as though on a dreadnought”....[273] And,
for the most part, the employees of the local Che-Ka do their
own touting work, and do it very well.... The next event is
that, just when the refugee is about to start for the river
landing-stage, there materialises an unexpected hold-up, and he
finds himself and his property under duress. And, inasmuch as
that property is usually made up of gold and foreign currency,
it can be made to furnish circumstantial evidence of “a
contemplated act of treason,” and so to furnish also a ground
for bargaining. Then, at long last, the victim is allowed to
proceed upon his way.... In fact, every Ukrainian town of any
size has its own small frontier place whence passage abroad can
be effected as from a private “window upon Europe.”
But sometimes that “window” would be closed for a while. Early in 1920
the small frontier towns of Podolia were very popular resorts for
Odessa and Kiev; but when spring arrived the whole population of the
Dnieperian region was shocked to hear that eighty decomposed bodies
had been found in a cave near Kamenka, one of the small Podolian towns
concerned, which proved to be bodies of refugees who, supposedly, had
long ago reached Bessarabia in safety. However, in localities where
Che-Kas were chronically poor, and, therefore, chronically desirous
of obtaining rich clients, the journey to foreign climes presented no
difficulties at all; though in winter-time the Che-Ka of Tiraspol
would control the traffic by nocturnal holdings-up of persons who
attempted to cross the river on the ice without first having paid the
Che-Ka its prescribed fee of from 4000 to 5000 Romanov roubles. And any
refugee so caught was then led naked through the streets, and beaten
with sticks and whips, to “harden him against freezing on the ice when
next he crossed.” And in Tiraspol also _provocation_ flourished.
On February 16, 1923, the _Posledniya Novosty_ reported that a
leading member of a commission which had been appointed to enquire
into the working of the O.G.P.U. had committed suicide on the Nikitsky
Boulevard, and left for discovery on his body a letter addressed to the
Praesidium of the Central Committee. The letter said:
My comrades, although the State Political Department was
designed as our principal institution for safeguarding what the
working classes have won, and Comrade Unschicht has shown it to
need greatly strengthening if its position is ever to become
consolidated, merely a glance at the manner of its working has,
joined with a brief perusal of the documents concerned, forced
me to the conclusion that forthwith I must rid myself of the
horrors and the iniquities which, practised in the name of the
great principles of Communism, have involuntarily been connived
at by myself as a responsible member of the Communist Party,
and that only my death can atone for the mistake which I have
committed. But first I would send you a request that you recover
your senses before it is too late, and cease to disgrace our
great teacher Marx, and to alienate the Russian people from
Socialism.
And there had been yet earlier cases of prickings of Bolshevist
conscience, especially before the mentality of the Bolshevist
_intelligentsia_ had wholly assimilated the brutality of Che-Ka
work, and whilst yet persons “with weak nerves and effeminate bodies”
(to quote Peters) were finding the sense of moral responsibility for
the bloodshed perpetrated under the auspices of the Communist Party,
and under those of the proletariat as a whole, too heavy a burden. At
all events, up to the beginning of 1919 letters to that effect kept
reaching the official press, and we find Petrovsky himself admitting
that if Che-Kas persisted in their policy of converting themselves into
independent State units, the end could only be a “demoralisation of the
State’s constructive labours.”
And when the Grand Dukes Nicholas, George, Dmitry, and Paul were shot
argumentation as to the advisability, or otherwise, of curbing the
Che-Kas broke out with greater virulence than ever in the Bolshevist
press. Yet though, eventually, _theoretical_ reforms were
introduced, the Terror continued its way unchecked, and we need but
recall the words of Moroz,[274] that “there is not a sphere of life
which the Che-Ka does not watch,” to realise that the moral and mental
conditions of Bolshevist Russia have never changed.
Take, for example, the type of _agent-provocateur_ or “Government
worker” whom Dzerzhinsky’s circular encouraged, and largely enabled, to
make good his footing in the State. “Life here is terrible,” wrote a
Pskov correspondent to the _Roussky Courier_ in May 1921:
Spies swarm like ants; they are to be found in every house and
every tenement and every street. Not a dwelling does not harbour
Communists engaged in watching the occupants. It is as though
we were living in a prison. Each man is afraid of the other,
and brother looks askance at brother. The place is an accursed
hotbed of espionage.
And in 1922 an official document entitled “Duties of Secret Agents for
January” enjoined that during that month:
All agents shall (1) keep under observation managements of
factories, and educated workers in the same, and make sure of
those persons’ political opinions, and report any agitation
or propaganda against the Soviet Power in which such persons
may engage; (2) investigate any gathering purporting to have
been organised for amusement (card-playing and the like) only,
but in reality for other ends, and, if possible, join in such
gathering, and report to the authorities its real purpose and
aims, and the names and surnames and addresses of all present;
(3) keep under surveillance all educated employees of Soviet
institutions, and note their conversation, and discover their
political views, and where they spend their leisure, and, in
short, communicate to the authorities any suspicious details;
(4) attend all intimate or family gatherings of an educated
class, discover their trend of opinion, and learn who have been
their organisers, and why they have been organised at all; (5)
watch for the holding of any communication between educated
persons and the _intelligentsia_ of a given district and
persons at home or abroad, and report upon the same, accurately
and fully.[275]
On the sixth anniversary of the Che-Ka’s sanguinary inception Zinoviev
wrote:
When the People entrusted the sword to the All-Russia
Extraordinary Commission, it was to worthy hands that the People
entrusted that weapon. And now the letters O.G.P.U. have become
as terrifying to our enemies as were once the letters V.C.K.
They are known all the world over.
And certainly this last is true.
When, in Tsarist times, the old “Third Department” was renamed “The
Department of State Police,” the act of renaming it was declared to
be an insult to the intelligence of the Russian community. Yet what
else can be said of a “reform” which has done no more than convert
the letters “V.C.K.” into the letters “O.G.P.U.,” and achieved results
brilliant to none save those who possess the mentality of a Zinoviev?
Long ago the Russian masses translated the initials “V.C.K.” into the
phrase “_Vsiem Cheloviekam Konetz!_” (“An End to All Men!”): and
though yet it remains to be seen how popular humour will interpret the
initials “O.G.P.U.,”[276] for the present the rest of the world regards
them as standing for an institution alien to democracy, and in no way
sanctioning the dictum of Anatole France that “revolutions are bound to
demand an irrational toll of victims.”
Once the Muscovite _Pravda_[277] quoted a promise on Trotsky’s
part that “if we are forced to depart hence, we shall make the whole
world hear it when we slam the door behind us, and leave to our
successors only ruins and the silence of a cemetery.”
That silence is reigning in Russia now. And in “The Ship of Death” we
find written:
Reason totters with the effort to understand; eyes grow dim as
they gaze upon things which the scores of generations before us
never saw or knew, and the generations after us will scarcely
be able to imagine even with the aid of history books. For
death, once so mysterious to us, once altogether beyond our
understanding, has now lost its terrors, and become, rather,
life. No longer the pungent odour of human blood, saturating
the air with its heavy vapour, unnerves us. We have ceased to
tremble on beholding endless strings of human beings being led
to execution, now that we have seen infants shot and writhing
in our streets, and cold, mutilated corpses of men and women,
victims of an insane terrorism, lying piled in heaps. Moreover,
not once, but many times, have we ourselves stood on the
Dividing Line. Hence we know those spectacles as a native knows
the footways of his familiar town, and listen to the sound of
shots as we would to human voices. Yet, just because triumphant
Death is for ever facing us is the land become silent, and
its crushed soul sending forth not even the elemental cry of
anguish and despair. Physically that land has lived through
never-to-be-forgotten years of civil strife, but spiritually
it is worn-out, fettered, and extinct--a mere dumb Russia of
tortures and executions.
Yet though the living may be dumb, it is not so with the dead. They are
crying aloud to us from the ravine of Saratov, from the dungeons of
Kharkov and Khuban, and from the “camp of death” at Kholmogory.
For never can the dead be put to silence!
THE END
BIBLIOGRAPHY
_Of Works used by the Author up to March 1924_
I. PUBLISHED IN SOVIET RUSSIA
1. M. Y. LATZIS. _Two Years of Warfare Conducted upon the
Inner Front._ (A Survey of the activities of the All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission during two years of its struggle with
counter-revolution.) The State Publishing Dept. Moscow. 1920.
2. “THE RED BOOK” OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION.
Moscow. 1919.
3. “THE WEEKLY” OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION.
Nos. 1–6. Moscow. 1918.
4. “THE RED SWORD.” The official organ of the Ukrainian
Extraordinary Commission. Kieff. 1918.
5. THE OFFICIAL ORGANS OF THE SOVIET AUTHORITIES. The _Izvestia_
of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Moscow); the
provincial _Izvestia_ (Kharkoff, Kieff, Odessa, Tambov,
Voronezh, Riazan, Stavropol, Saratov, etc.).
6. COMMUNIST NEWSPAPERS. _Pravda_ (Moscow and Petrograd), _The
Red Newspaper_ (Petrograd), _The Northern Commune_ (Petrograd),
and others.
7. “CIVIL WAR.” Materials for a history of the Red Army.
Published by the Supreme Military Council. Moscow. 1923.
8. “THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION.” A historical review dealing
with the history of the Communist Party.
9. TROTZKI. _Terrorism and Communism._ Moscow. 1920.
10. “THE NEW LIFE.” Journal edited by M. Gorki. Petrograd. 1918.
11. “BULLETINS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE PARTY OF LEFT
SOCIAL REVOLUTIONARIES (INTERNATIONALISTS).” Published illicitly
in Moscow in 1919.
12. “THE INFORMATION SHEET.” Illicit publication of the Union of
Regeneration. Moscow. 1918.
13. “THE BANNER OF LABOUR.” Illicit publication of the Party of
Left Social Revolutionaries. Moscow. 1920.
14. “THE REVOLUTIONARY CAUSE.” Illicit publication of the Party
of Social Revolutionaries. Petrograd. 1922.
15. PROCLAMATIONS. Issued by the Social Revolutionary and Social
Democratic Parties; by the Anarchists and by the so-called
“Labour Opposition” within the Communist Party, 1919–1923.
II. PUBLISHED ABROAD
16. SUMMARY OF MATERIALS COLLECTED BY THE SPECIAL COMMISSION OF
INQUIRY INTO THE OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY THE BOLSHEVISTS. This
Commission was attached to the Supreme Commander of the Armed
Forces of the South of Russia. Vols. I.-III. Rostov-on-Don. 1919.
17. A. LOCKERMANN. _74 Days of Soviet Rule._ Published by the
Don Committee of the Party of Social Democrats. Rostov-on-Don.
1918.
18. AVERBUCH. _The Extraordinary Commission of Odessa._
Kishinev. 1920.
19. “THE CHE-KA.” Materials dealing with the activities of the
Extraordinary Commission. Published by the Central Bureau of the
Social Revolutionary Party. Berlin. 1922.
20. “THE KREMLIN BEHIND PRISON BARS.” Published by the Party of
Left Social Revolutionaries. “Skify,” Berlin. 1922.
21. “THE PERSECUTION OF ANARCHISTS IN SOVIET RUSSIA.” Published
by a group of Russian Anarchists in Germany. Berlin. 1922.
22. O. CHERNOVA-KOLBASSINA. _Reminiscences of Soviet Prisons._
Published by the Social Revolutionaries in Paris. 1921.
23. N. DAVYDOVA. _Six Months in Prison._ Berlin. 1923.
24. “THE 12 CONDEMNED TO DEATH.” (The trial of the Social
Revolutionaries in Moscow.) Berlin. 1922.
25. V. AICH. _The City which was Wiped Out._ (The tragedy of
Novo-Nikolaevsk on the Amur.) Vladivostok. 1920.
26. VL. MARGOULIES. _Years of Fire._ Berlin. 1923.
27. T. VAISHER. _Things Seen and Suffered in Soviet Russia._
Berlin. 1923.
28. I. OSSIPOV. _The Drive._ Przemysl. 1922.
29. M. S. MARGOULIES. _A Year of Intervention._ Vol. II.
Published by Grzebina. Berlin. 1922.
30. MARTOV. _Down with Capital Punishment._ Published by the
_Socialistichesky Vestnik_. Berlin. 1923.
31. N. VORONOVICH. _The Green Book._ (A history of the peasant
movement in the Black Sea Province.) Prague. 1921.
32. STEINBERG. _The Moral Aspect of the Revolution._ Berlin.
1923.
33. M. GORKI. _About the Russian Peasantry._ Published by
Ladyzhnikov. Berlin. 1922.
34. A. PESHEKHONOV. _The Reason why I did not Emigrate._
Published by the _Obelisk_. Berlin. 1923.
35. VISHNIAK. _The Black Year._ Published by Povolotzki. Paris.
1922.
36. VL. KOROLENKO. _Letters to Lunacharsky._ Published by
“Zadruga,” Berlin. 1922.
37. DENIKIN, A. I. _Essays upon the Russian Revolution._ Vol.
III. “Slovo,” Berlin. 1924.
38. MASLOV, O. _Russia after Four Years of Revolution._
Published by the “Russian Press,” Paris. 1922.
39. USTONOV. _Memoirs of a Chief of the Anti-Bolshevist
Intelligence Department, 1915–1920._ Published by Maier, Berlin.
1923.
40. “MEMORANDUM DES PRISONS SOVIETIQUES.” Comité Executif de la
Conférence des Membres de l’Assemblée Constit. de Russie. Paris.
1921.
41. “MEMORANDUM PRESENTÉ PAR LES DÉLÉGATS DU PARTI
SOCIALISTES-RÉVOLUTION AU CONGRÈS DES TROIS UNIONS INTERNAT.”
Berlin. 1922.
42. “CONFERENCE DES MEMBRES DE L’ASSEMBLÉE CONSTIT. DE RUSSIE.”
Paris. 1921.
43. “CHRONIK DER VERFOLGUNGEN IN SOWJET RUSSLAND.” (Ein
unperiodisches Bulletin der Hilfsvereins für politische
Gefargene und Verbannte in Russland.) Berlin. 1923.
44. ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN RUSSIAN JOURNALS ABROAD:
(_a_) _Archives of the Russian Revolution._ (Edited by
Essen.) Berlin.
(_b_) _In Strange Lands._ (Edited by Melgunov and
Miakotin.) Berlin-Prague.
(_c_) _Contemporary Notes._ (Edited by Avksentieff and
Rudnef and others.) Paris.
(_d_) _Russian Thought._ (Edited by Struve.) Prague.
(_e_) _Russian History_ (the organ of Monarchists in
Paris).
(_f_) _The Historian and Contemporary._ Berlin.
(_g_) _The Ways of the Revolution_ (organ of the Left
Social Revolutionaries). “Skify,” Berlin.
(_i_) _The Will of Russia._ (Lebedeff and others.) Prague.
(_k_) _The Dawn_ (organ of the Social Democrats). Berlin.
(_l_) _The News of the Russian National Committee._ Paris.
(_m_) _The Kossack’s Thoughts._ Sofia.
(_n_) _The Socialist News_ (organ of the Social
Democrats). Berlin.
(_o_) _Revolutionary Russia_ (organ of the Social
Revolutionary Party). Prague.
(_p_) _The Banner of Strife_ (organ of the Left Social
Revolutionaries). Berlin.
(_q_) _The Anarchist News._
(_r_) _Peasant Russia._ (Argunoff.) Berlin and Prague.
45. ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN NEWSPAPERS:
(_a_) _The Latest News._ (Professor Miliukoff.) Paris.
(_b_) _The Helm._ (Gessen.) Berlin.
(_c_) _To-day._ Riga.
(_d_) _Freedom._ (Philosophov and Artzibanstiev.) Warsaw.
(_e_) _Days._ (Kerensky.) Berlin.
(_f_) _The New Russian Word._ New York.
(_g_) _The Common Cause, 1920–1922._ (Burtzeff.) Paris.
(_i_) _La Cause Commune._ (Burtzeff.) Paris.
(_k_) _New Times._ (Suvorin.) Belgrade.
(_l_) _The Voice of Russia, 1920–1922_ (the organ of
Social Revolutionaries). Berlin.
(_m_) _The Ukrainian Tribune._ 1923. Warsaw.
(_n_) _Russia To-day._ (_The Times._)
III. FOREIGN SOURCES
46. “A COLLECTION OF REPORTS ON BOLSHEVISM IN RUSSIA.” (Abridged
Edition of Parliamentary Paper, Russia, No. 1.) 1919.
47. “INTERIM REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO COLLECT INFORMATION ON
RUSSIA.” 1920.
48. “REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO COLLECT INFORMATION ON RUSSIA.”
1921.
49. NILOSTONSKY. _Der Blutrausch des Bolschewismus._ Neudeutsch.
Verlag, Berlin. 1920.
50. A. NIEMANN. _Fünf Monate Obrigkeit von Unten._ _Der Firn_,
Berlin. 1920.
51. MINK. _Rote Russland Not._ Verlag Gesellschaft, Berlin. 1920.
52. STRATZ. _Drei Monate als Geisel für Radek._ Berlin. 1920.
53. A. AXELROD. _Das Wirtschaftliche Erzebuiss des Bolschewismus
in Russland._ Zürich. 1920.
54. E. KÖHRER. _Das Wahre Gesicht des Bolschewismus_ (Bilder aus
den Baltischen Provinzen, 1918–1919). Berlin.
55. E. KÖHRER. _Unter der Herrschaft des Bolschewismus._ _Der
Firn_, Berlin. 1920.
56. K. KAUTSKY. _Terrorism and Communism._ Ladyzhnikoff, Berlin.
1920.
57. E. HERRIOT. _La Russie Nouvelle._ Paris. 1923.
58. O. KEUN. _Sous Lenine._ Paris. 1922.
59. S. VOLSKY. _Dans le Royaume de la famine et de la haine._
Paris. 1920.
60. A. MAZON. _Prisons Russes._ Paris. 1919.
61. ARTICLES published in _Vorwaerts_, _Humanité_, _Le Peuple_,
_Pravo Lidu_; Professor Sarolea’s articles in the _Scotsman_.
IV. UNPUBLISHED WORKS
62. “ARCHIVES OF THE SPECIAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO THE
OUTRAGES COMMITTED BY THE BOLSHEVISTS.” (Protocols of meetings
of the Extraordinary Commission; statements made by victims;
descriptions of places where shootings had taken place, and of
prisons; instructions to counsel for the prosecution, etc.)
63. “STATEMENTS MADE BY MESSRS. SHMELOV, LOWKIN, AND OTHERS
DURING THE LAUSANNE TRIAL.”
64. “MATERIALS OF THE POLITICAL RED CROSS IN RUSSIA.”
65. “MATERIALS COLLECTED BY THE AUTHOR IN RUSSIA,” and taken to
a place of safety abroad in 1922. (Letters, appeals, documents
of the Extraordinary Commission, etc.)
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] In the remarkable letter which, in 1906, Sagonov sent to
his parents from the Butyrka Prison, where he was lying for the
assassination of Plehve, the writer said: “I have committed the most
terrible of all acts. I have killed two human beings, and stained my
hands with blood. But it was only owing to the horrible struggle and
suffering, only owing to our confrontment with the sad realities of
life, that I had to take up the sword.... And, even so, we were not the
first to take it up.... Ah, I could not refuse to assume my cross! Try
to understand this, and to forgive me. Let people speak of me and my
comrades--of those who have been executed, and of those who are still
alive--as my counsel spoke. Said he: ‘The bomb which this man threw was
not a bomb filled with dynamite, but a bomb charged with the pain and
tears of a whole people. By hurling missiles at its rulers, that people
hoped at least to dissipate the terrible burden of nightmare from its
breast.’”
[2] _A Collection of Reports on Russian Bolshevism_, Abridged
Edition. British Parliamentary Paper, “Russia, No. 1,” p. 69.
[3] The same, pp. 25 and 26.
[4] The _Outro Moskvy_ (“Morning Post of Moscow”), No. 21,
November 4, 1918.
[5] The number of names originally given was fifteen.
[6] Giving evidence before The Lausanne Tribunal, P. Artibashev
estimated the number at 500.
[7] See the section “In the Days of the Red Terror,” in the compilation
known as _The Che-Ka_.
[8] In Tsarist days this room had been a disinfecting place for
newly-arrived convicts.
[9] From the section “The Hungry Guillotine” in _The Che-Ka_, pp.
49 and 50.
[10] See the _Severnaya Communa_ (“Northern Commune”) of September
18, 1918.
[11] See the _Izvestia_ of Moscow: also the _Severny Kavkaz_
(“Northern Caucasus”), No. 138.
[12] See the materials collected by the Denikin Commission.
[13] The almost incredible horrors of this massacre are described on a
later page.
[14] Still earlier than this, namely, on the previous March 1,
Dzherzhinsky had written in the Kievan edition of the _Izvestia_:
“It would be well if all Social Revolutionaries now in custody were
converted into hostages, and made to serve as guarantees for the good
behaviour of their respective wings of the Social Revolutionary Party.”
[15] See the _Izvestia_ of Saratov, October 2, 1919.
[16] In the section “A Year in the Butyrka Prison” in _The
Che-Ka_, p. 144.
[17] He did so in No. 3 of the author’s Berlin-published (Russian)
review, _Na Chouzhoi Storonyé_ (“In Foreign Parts”).
[18] The _Izvestia_ of Khakov, No. 126, May 13, 1919.
[19] In No. 345 of that journal.
[20] See British Parliamentary Paper, “Russia, No. 1 (1919),” p. 15.
[21] See the _Rousskaya Zhizn_ (“Russian Life”), of March 11.
[22] As a result of this disconcerting statement, Madame Zoubevich was
exiled to Orenburg.
[23] The organ of the All-Ukrainian Che-Ka. See its No. 134 of the year
1918.
[24] See the journal _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_ (“Revolutionary
Russia”), Nos. 14 and 15.
[25] I have heard that this man is now in a lunatic asylum.
[26] Only recently the Che-Ka of Georgia seized a large number of
Menshevist (Social Democrat) hostages.
[27] A notice to that effect was published in No. 1 of the _Gazeta
Vremennago Rabochago i Krestianskago Pravitelstva_ (“Gazette of the
Workers’ and Peasants’ Temporary Government”).
[28] The _Izvestia_, No. 27.
[29] The Kievan _Izvestia_ of May 17, 1919.
[30] “The New Life.”
[31] The _Weekly_, No. 6.
[32] See Margoulies’ work, _A Year of Intervention_, vol. ii., p.
77.
[33] Published in No. 192 of the _Izvestia_, 1918.
[34] The Commissary of Justice at the time was Steinberg.
[35] Meetings in support of a Red Terror were largely held in Moscow,
and addressed by Kamenev, Bukharin, Sverdlov, Lounacharsky, and
Krylenko.
[36] On October 18, 1919.
[37] That is to say, the three Russian characters which usually
are transliterated as “V,” “Ch,” and “K” begin both the title of
the _Vserossiiskaya Chrezvychainaya Komissia_ (“All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission”) and the words _Vsiakomou chelovekou
kapout!_ “Death to every man!”).
[38] For example, I failed to receive information as to twelve Social
Revolutionaries whom Nos. 16 and 18 of the journal _Revolutsionnaya
Rossia_ reported to have been shot at Astrakhan on September 5, 1918.
[39] See the _Izvestia_ for February 8.
[40] British White Book, 1920. Also British White Book, 1921.
[41] British Parliamentary Paper, “Russia, No. 1,” p. 56. Also “Sir C.
Eliot to Lord Curzon,” March 21, 1919.
[42] The _Obstchoyé Dielo_, No. 56.
[43] _Archives of the Revolution_, III, 159.
[44] In some localities it was impossible to verify numbers of victims
even when the Bolshevist forces had withdrawn. Thus the Kharkov branch
of the Denikin Commission, which accompanied representatives of the
Kharkov town council and trades council and working women’s union to
eleven prisons in the region, and discovered in those prisons two
hundred bodies, had still to estimate that the real number had been at
least three times as large, since exhumation of the bodies buried in
and beyond the public park was impossible.
[45] “In the Shadow of Death. Report of a Red Cross Worker on the
Bolshevist Prisons in Kiev,” in _Archives of the Revolution_.
[46] About a hundred yards.
[47] Published by the organisation “Der Firn.”
[48] That is to say, a “prosecuting counsel” for the Che-Ka.
[49] See also Margoulies’ book, p. 279.
[50] See “Shootings in Astrakhan,” in _The Che-Ka_, pp. 251 and
253.
[51] The _Volya Rossii_, or “Will of Russia.” The issue referred
to is the issue of December 7, 1921.
[52] See _The Che-Ka_, p. 227.
[53] See _The Che-Ka_, p. 102.
[54] Presumably, the Tsar.
[55] February 15, 1919.
[56] _The Kremlin through Prison Bars_, p. 112.
[57] Under date of August 30, 1919, the French author Cachin wrote
to _L’Humanité_ that, although the Terror, as such, had ended
with the previous year, prisoners still were being sent to the front
for execution. And, later, the Czech Socialist, Posenczka, rendered a
like report. See the _Posledniya Novosty_ (“The Latest News”--a
foreign-published Russian journal) of June 30, 1920.
[58] Executions at the front had been taking place uninterruptedly.
Madame Reissner said when writing of events in Sviashsk during
the August of 1918: “Red Guards were shot there like dogs, with
twenty-seven leading Communists who attempted to desert on the Whites
approaching the town--shot ‘as a warning to others.’”
[59] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of October 20, 1919.
[60] Nevertheless, shootings ordered by the Central Che-Ka
_were_ reported, and No. 206 of the _Izvestia_ issued a list of
sixteen persons shot by that Che-Ka for having misused their
ration cards. Amongst the victims were Doctor Moudrov, a Princess
Shirinskaya-Shakhmatova, and others.
[61] Of February 18, 1921.
[62] In the issue of June 24, 1920.
[63] Certainly the British press, at that time, reported shootings of
sufferers from the disease--of _child_ sufferers. And see the
_Posledniya Novosty_, No. 656.
[64] In A. P. Akselrod’s book _Das Wirtschaftliche Ergebniss des
Bolschewismus_ (“The Administrative Result of Bolshevism”) we find
an account of a punitive train which was manned chiefly by Letts and
sailors in order to patrol the Vologda-Cherepovetz line, and to halt at
one or another station for the usual terrorist purposes.
[65] See the _Izvestia_ of Voronezh of August 12, 1919.
[66] The _Posledniya Novosty_ of November 8, 1920.
[67] Of March 25, 1922.
[68] See the section “Sketches of Prison Life,” in _The Che-Ka_,
pp. 119 and 120.
[69] 1920, No. 14.
[70] _The Twelve Condemned_, p. 25.
[71] See No. 6 of the _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[72] See No. 33 of the _Posledniya Novosty_.
[73] See No. 233 and following numbers of that journal.
[74] See Ossipov’s book, _At the Cross Roads_, 1917–1920, pp. 67
and 68.
[75] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of December 11.
[76] See the section “The Kuban Che-Ka,” in _The Che-Ka_, pp. 227
and 228.
[77] See No. 4 of _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[78] Arbatov’s reminiscences in _Archives of the Revolution_, XII,
119.
[79] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of December, 1920.
[80] As reported in No. 9 of that journal.
[81] See No. 7 of the _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[82] Before the Lausanne Tribunal the well-known writer, Ivan S.
Shmelov, stated that he reckoned the slain in the Crimea to have
reached 120,000.
[83] “The Helm,” a Berlin-published Russian journal. The above refers
to its issue of August 3,1921. See also No. 392 of the _Posledniya
Novosty_.
[84] This woman is said later to have been caught and put to death by
the Greens, the rebel soldiers of the South.
[85] See also the _Posledniya Novosty_ of August 10, 1921.
[86] See the _Obstchoyé Dielo_ of July 10, 1920.
[87] Whips of horsehide.
[88] See No. 221 of the _Posledniya Novosty_.
[89] The _Dielo_ of January 13, 1921.
[90] The same of November 9, 1921.
[91] No. 148 of the same, and also the _Posledniya Novosty_ of
August 16, 1921.
[92] The _Dielo_ of December 11, and other journals.
[93] See the _Roul_ of December 11.
[94] See the _Dielo_ of December 8, 1920.
[95] See the _Dielo_ of December 24, 1920.
[96] See the issue of August 31, 1921.
[97] The Bolshevists’ telegraphic agency in the Crimea.
[98] See the _Dielo_ of August 23.
[99] See No. 81 of the _Pravda_.
[100] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of October 14.
[101] Green Book, _A Record of the Peasant Movement in the Black Sea
Provinces_, by N. Voronovich.
[102] In this connection, see No. 11 of _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[103] See the _Posledniya Novosty_, No. 572.
[104] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of September 18.
[105] See No. 217 of the _Izvestia_.
[106] See the _Dielo_ of September 22 and October 7.
[107] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of December 21.
[108] See the _Roul_ of September 30.
[109] See the _Roul_ of December 7, and the _Frankfurter
Zeitung_ of about the same period.
[110] Of April 19, 1921.
[111] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of August 30.
[112] See the _Dielo_ of February 16, 1921.
[113] At present my store of Siberian data is incomplete, but I shall
hope later to complete and produce it.
[114] The _Dielo_ of March 22.
[115] Other shootings of the kind took place earlier. In 1919 some Boy
Scouts were shot in Moscow, and in 1920 the same fate (for “espionage”)
was meted out to the members of a tennis club. Other cases also
occurred.
[116] See the _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_, Nos. 12 and 13.
[117] Two other, but smaller, groups were shot later.
[118] See the _Posledniya Novosty_, No. 281.
[119] See No. 8 of _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[120] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of May 13.
[121] See _Archives of the Russian Revolution_, XII, 132.
[122] Well-to-do peasants--peasant capitalists or factors.
[123] See the _Segodnya_ (“To-day”) of April 25, 1921.
[124] In the _Vestnik_ (“Messenger”) of March, 1923, pp. 28 and 29.
[125] There is a pun in this, since _mogilev_ also means a tomb.
[126] See the _Posledniya Novosty_, No. 729.
[127] In _Archives of the Russian Revolution_, XII, 145.
[128] As announced by the Warsaw journal _Za Svobodou_ (“For
Freedom”), to which the deceased had been a contributor.
[129] See the _Dni_ of March 13, 1923, and No. 5 of the
_Sotsialistichesky Vestnik_, 1923.
[130] See the _Sotsialistichesky Vestnik_, No. 15.
[131] See the _Izvestia_ of February 27.
[132] See the _Izvestia_ of February 29.
[133] See the _Dni_ of January 24, No. 395.
[134] See the _Dni_ of March 4.
[135] See the _Novoyé Vremya_ of August 3, 1923.
[136] See “Reminiscences of Sub-Lieutenant Hefter,” in _Archives of
the Russian Revolution_, X, 118.
[137] See the _Roul_ of August 3, 1923.
[138] In an at once lucid and accurate series of articles on Russia,
published in the Edinburgh _Scotsman_, Professor Sarolea gives the
following table of classified totals:
“Bishops, 28; ecclesiastics, 1219; professors and teachers, 6000;
medical men, 9000; naval and military officers, 54,000; naval and
military men of the ranks, 260,000; police officials, 70,000;
intellectuals and members of the professional classes, 355,250;
industrial workers, 193,290; peasants, 815,000.”
[139] See _Archives of the Revolution_, VII, 164.
[140] See _The Twelve Condemned_, p. 21.
[141] British Parliamentary Paper, _Reports on Bolshevist Russia,
Abridged Edition, Russia, No. 1_, pp. 42 and 54.
[142] See the already quoted British Parliamentary Paper, p. 53.
[143] In a diary compiled by A. Boudberg, and included in _Archives
of the Russian Revolution_, we find the total of slain at
Blagoveschensk given as 1500.
[144] From reports and other documents contained in the State Papers of
Czechoslovakia, 1919, Vol. LIII.
[145] See _Archives of the Russian Revolution_, IX, 190.
[146] See his book _The Kremlin from behind Prison Bars_, p. 177.
[147] See “For the Soviet Power” in S. M. Pougachevsky’s _Diary of a
Participant in the Civil War_, and his _Materials for a History of
the Red Army_, I, 406.
[148] See p. 54 of the British White Book cited.
[149] That is to say, a member of the _Oprichnina_, or corps
of police-lifeguardsmen, which Tsar Ivan IV (“Ivan the Terrible”)
maintained during the sixteenth century.
[150] _A propos_, a report from a local Che-Ka included the query:
“What are we to do with people who would celebrate the downfall of the
Peasants’ and Workers’ Power by holding thanksgiving services?” See No.
4 of the _Weekly_, p. 25.
[151] See the _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_, No. 12.
[152] The _Znamya Trouda_, No. 3, 1920.
[153] See a letter of June, 1920, quoted in _The Kremlin from behind
Prison Bars_.
[154] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of September 21, 1921.
[155] See No. 1 of the _Za Narod_ (“For the People”).
[156] See “Report of the Trial of some Left Social Revolutionaries on
June 27 and 28, 1922,” in _The Days of the Revolution_, p. 296.
[157] One provincial executive committee brazenly admitted to having
ordered villages of from 6,000 to 10,000 inhabitants to be burnt to the
ground for tearing down official proclamations.
[158] See the _Znamya Trouda_, No. 3, September, 1920.
[159] Gan received this item from an eye-witness.
[160] Pp. 56–61.
[161] A slang term (literally, an “insolent jowl”) for an official such
as Gogol has immortalised in his play _The Inspector-General_.
[162] From Steinberg’s book.
[163] From No. 15 of the _Izvestia_, 1919.
[164] See Margoulies’ book in this connection.
[165] See the _Znamya Trouda_, No. 3. _Cf._ also the Ekaterinodar
shootings of industrial workers already described.
[166] See the Left Socialist Revolutionists’ Party’s _Bulletin_,
No. 4.
[167] See the journal _Kharkovskaya Svezda_ (“Star of Kharkov”),
of June 7, 1919.
[168] See the Kievan _Izvestia_ of July 24, 1919.
[169] See the _Nachalo_ (“Principle” or “Guide”) of July 19, 1919.
[170] See the _Narodnaya Vlast_ (“Rule of the People”) of January
24, 1919.
[171] See the _Nachalo_ of July 24, 1919.
[172] See the _Posledinaya Novosty_ of April 25, 1922.
[173] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of November 24, 1920.
[174] From data collected by the Denikin Commission.
[175] Possibly, in this execution the orgy of Bolshevist injustice
reached its apogee.
[176] See the _Rabochy Krai_ (“The Workers’ Realm”) of October 19,
1919.
[177] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of November 6, 1920.
[178] See the same journal of November 6.
[179] This girl of seventeen was shot ostensibly for petty theft; but
there is reason to suppose that her real crime had been that she had
called Steklov a “Jew.”
[180] See Vishniak’s _Sovremenniya Zapisky_ (“Contemporary Notes),
I, 227.
[181] See the _Obstchoyé Dielo_ (“The Common Cause”), No. 126.
[182] Lane or alley.
[183] The British White Book already quoted, p. 43.
[184] The _Riazanskaya Izvestia_ (“Riazan News”) of September 7,
1919.
[185] In the _Volya Rossii_, No. 4, 1922.
[186] From _Six Months in Prison_, p. 65.
[187] See _The Che-Ka_, section 108, and Chap. iv. of the
Memorandum issued by the Social Revolutionary Party.
[188] See _The Che-Ka_, pp. 230 and 231.
[189] Report of the Denikin Commission.
[190] See No. 476 of the _Dielo_.
[191] In its issue of June 27, 1921.
[192] Materials collected by the Denikin Commission.
[193] See the materials collected by the Denikin Commission, and
also Madame Kourakina’s reminiscences in No. 5 of the _Rousskaya
Lietopis_ “Russian Chronicle”), p. 201.
[194] See the _Rabochnaya Zhizn_ (“Working-Class Life”) of May,
1918.
[195] Related by A. Nikolin in No. 9 of the _Kazachyi Dumi_
(“Cossack Opinion”).
[196] These details are taken from the instalment of the Denikin
materials published at Rostov-on-Don.
[197] In _The Kremlin from behind Prison Bars_, p. 187.
[198] He was the well-known Social Revolutionary Karelin.
[199] These details are taken from the foreign journal, _Brihwa
Seme_. If I have quoted the title of the journal wrongly, the fact
is due to my having been able to make but a hasty extract from it
whilst I was still living in Moscow.
[200] From the Appeal issued by the Georgian Social Democrats on July
5, 1923, as reprinted in No. 15 of the _Socialistichesky Vestnik_.
[201] The then British Consul in Petrograd.
[202] The article is to be found in the _Weekly_ of October 6,
1918.
[203] They were issued on March 3, 1919, as confirmed by P. Mayer’s
reminiscences of his former service in the Commissariat of Justice.
[204] Of December 7, 1920.
[205] Of December 12, 1923.
[206] And, if I am not mistaken, rewarded with “the Order of the Red
Flag.” See Digest No. 344 of the digests compiled by Denikin’s Staff.
[207] See _The Che-Ka_, pp. 242, 243.
[208] And published in No. 2 of the _Revolutsionnoyé Dielo_.
[209] See the _Ponti Revolutsyi_ of April 9, 1922.
[210] In an issue of the _Rabochy Listok_ or “Workers’ Sheet” we
find mention of the Petrograd Che-Ka putting prisoners into fetters
_pending inquiry_, whilst No. 5 of the _Socialistichesky
Vestnik_ tells of prisoners being sent to lunatic asylums for
confinement with dangerous maniacs.
[211] In _The Che-Ka of Odessa_, published at Kishinev in 1920, p.
30.
[212] The pair of “gloves” in question are still to be seen in the
Great Palace of the Kremlin. They figure in Edouard Herriot’s book,
_La Russie Nouvelle_.
[213] See Averbuch’s _The Che-Ka of Odessa_, p. 36.
[214] _Archives of the Russian Revolution_, Vol. VI.
[215] See Odette Kun’s _Sous Lenine, Notes d’une Femme Déportée
en Russie par les Anglais_, p. 179, and also No. 3 of the review
_Na Chouzhoi Storonyé_. Odette Kun had begun by being deported
from Constantinople by the British authorities, who suspected her of
carrying on Communist propaganda.
[216] See this author’s _My Memoirs_, p. 263.
[217] See Z. U. Arbatov, in _Archives of the Russian Revolution_,
XII, 89.
[218] Short for the slang expression “_Raskhod_,” equivalent to
“to be killed,” or “dispatched.”
[219] Of March, 1922.
[220] In the same connection see the _Posledniya Novosty_ of July
17, 1921.
[221] Of March 25, 1922.
[222] This was before she became Kedrov’s wife.
[223] See the _Golos Rossii_ of January 27, 1922.
[224] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of March 2, 1921.
[225] _Der Blutrausch des Bolschewismus_, p. 19.
[226] See the section “A Year in the Butyrka” in _The Che-Ka_, p.
146.
[227] See the _Novoyé Russkoyé Slovo_ (“The New Russian Word”) of
New York, of February 19, 1924.
[228] See the _Dni_ of March 7, 1924.
[229] Other instances of this kind of phraseology are given by
Kartzevsky in his _The Speech of Warfare and Revolution_, Russ.
Univ. Edition, Berlin, 1923.
[230] See _Archives of the Revolution_, VIII, 153.
[231] In that journal’s issue for April 1919.
[232] From the _Posledinya Novosty_ of September 21,1920.
[233] From the same, No. 168.
[234] Medviedev’s and others’ evidence before the Commission has been
published by Telburg in America, and in No. 5 of the journal _The
Contemporary Historian_ in Germany.
[235] See _The Che-Ka_, pp. 232, 233.
[236] No. 168 of that journal.
[237] Published in the _Rousskaya Lietopis_ (“The Russian
Chronicle”), No. 5, pp. 199 and 200.
[238] From _The Che-Ka_.
[239] In the tenth issue of that journal.
[240] Nos. 3 and 4.
[241] Respectively _The Workman’s Gazette_ and _Proletarian
Truth_.
[242] This description is quoted from Nos. 12, 13, and 43 of
_Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[243] See Margoulies’ _Years of Fire_.
[244] These particulars are taken from the manuscript data with
relation to the Crimea which the Denikin Commission collected.
[245] Many other details of the sort are to be found recorded in the
“Memorandum concerning Political Prisoners in Soviet Russia,” which the
Paris Congress of the Russian Constituent Assembly drew up.
[246] See No. 15 of the _Socialistichesky Vestnik_.
[247] See Nos. 33 and 34 (1924) of _Revolutsionnaya Rossia_.
[248] The British public may be reminded that the Russian pound is
equivalent only to nine-tenths of the pound avoirdupois.
[249] In addition to which it may be said that in many prisons the
authorities either made food parcels common property--that is to say,
divided the meagre contents of the parcels amongst a large number of
prisoners--or confiscated the contents themselves.
[250] This document was reproduced in the _Izvestia_ of December
26, 1918.
[251] See the _Izvestia_ of December 4, 1918.
[252] Peasant low shoes of bark.
[253] At times the Butyrka, though built to hold 1100 prisoners only,
contained over 3000.
[254] This was, of course, in addition to thousands of others who had
been deported to outlying provinces, or thrown into the prisons of
Tiflis and Kukais.
[255] See the _Zveno_ (“Link”) for 1923.
[256] So phenomenal, indeed, that even twelve doctors who ventured
to criticise the Government’s starvation of prisoners policy found
themselves deported.
[257] As complementary, of course, to the account already given.
[258] Some of the foregoing details are from a letter actually written
from Solovetsky by a prisoner, and dated March 8, 1924.
[259] As an instance of this Che-Ka’s taste for drama it may be
mentioned that one of the most terrible of all extant photographs of
mutilated corpses is one of victims slain by this Che-Ka.
[260] Lenin’s dictum on the point was that “for every hundred decent
members of Che-Kas there are ninety-nine rogues.” Yet the fact in no
way depressed him. As early as 1905 he said: “Our party is not meant to
be a boarding-school for young ladies. For the very reason that a rogue
is a rogue he may prove the more useful.” Naturally, he knew what he
was talking about.
[261] A Russian diminutive of the name Michael.
[262] See Margoulies’ _Years of Fire_, pp. 178, 179.
[263] In view of this official’s original profession, it is not without
interest to note that his surname, of patronymical formation, is based
upon the Russian word for “cat.”
[264] See the _Obstchoyé Dielo_ of March 1, 1921.
[265] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of March 2, 1921.
[266] See the Che-Ka’s _Weekly_, No. 5.
[267] See the _Posledniya Novosty_ of October 14, 1921.
[268] In the _Obstchoyé Dielo_ of November 3, 1920.
[269] See the same journal in its issue of October 18, 1921.
[270] See No. 299 of the _Volya Rossii_, 1921.
[271] Published in _The Times_ in 1923, and subsequently
translated into Russian.
[272] See British Parliamentary Paper, “Russia, No. 1 (1919),” p. 36,
and the materials collected by the Denikin Commission.
[273] The actual term “dreadnought” was used--transliterated, of
course, into Russian characters.
[274] A leading Che-Ka official.
[275] This document was reproduced in the _Golos Rossii_ of April
16, 1922.
[276] Since writing these words I have heard that a version already
current is _Gospody, Pomilouy Oumershikh!_ (“Lord, have mercy upon
the dead!”).
[277] Of July 13, 1921.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.