THE "CHEKA."

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 28

THE "CHEKA."

MACHINE OF RUSSIAN TERROR. EMMA GOLDMAN'S INDICTMENT. We have had mentioned more than once recently in our cable news the "Cheka," or Russian organisation for the suppression of anti-Soviet activities. This powerful and ruthless machine is described in one of the articles that Emma Goldman has written about her experiences in Russia. Emma Goldman is the notorious anarchist who was deported from America to Russia, and as a result of her observations there, was disillusioned about Soviet rule. She writes: — ' The Cheka. or All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, unquestionably is the blackest measure of the Bolshevik regime. It was organised shortly after the Bolsheviki panic to powpr for the purpose of coping with counter-revolu-tion, sabotage, and speculation. Originally the Cheka was controlled by the Commissariat of the Interior. the Soviets, and (he Central Committee of the Communist party. Gradually it became the most powerful organisation in Russia. It was not merely a State within a State: it was a State over a State. The whole of Russia is covered to the remotest village with a net of Chekas. Every Department in the vast bureaucratic machine has its Extraordinary Commission, omnipotent over the life and death of the Russian people. It would require the master pen of a Dante to bring home to the world the inferno created by this organisation, the brutalising, disintegrating effect it has upon the Extraordinary Commissions themselves, the dread, distrust, i hatred, suffering, and death it has 1 wrought upon Russia.

The head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission is Dzerzhinsky. He. together with his fellow-members of its presidium, are "tried" Communists. In a public statement Dzerzhinsky said: "We are the representatives of organised terror. ... We terrorise the enemies of the Soviet Government .. . . . We have the power to undertake raids, confiscate goods and capital, perform arrests, question, try and condemn those we consider guilty, and to inflict the death penalty."' In other words, the Cheka is spy, policeman, judge, gaoler, and executioner all in one. It is the supreme power from , which there is no redress, and only rarely an escape. It operates nearly I always at night. The sudden flood of ■ light* in a district, the noise of madly ] speeding Cheka automobiles, are signals ; for the alarm and dread of the community. The Cheka is at work again! ■>.lio art' the unfortunates caught in : • net this night. Whose turn will be IH'Xt?" The Clielca was organised to cope with counter-revolution, but for every real conspiracy it has unearthed it lias created nine, cither of an imaginary nature or of its own making. It must be borne in mind that the 'rnaiii assets of the Cheka are its provocators and informers. Like the scourge of typhus they infest the very air of Russia. They shrink from no method, be it ever,so base and cruel, to involve their victims and to penalise them as dangerous counter-revolutionists and speculators. In reality, however, tlie Cheka itself is a hotbed of counter-revolutionary plot and fabulous speculation. I Every Communist, by the discipline of ■his party, must at any time be ready to . serve in the Cheka. But the majority of the Chekists are from the Czar's "Okhrana." from the Black Hundreds, and from the former high officials of the army. The}" are adepts in the. application of barbarous methods. The Western world has been fed on glowing

accounts of the people's tribunals in Russia—the courts presided over by workers and peasants. There are no such courts within the domain of the Cheka. Its proceedings are secret. Ihe so-called hearings, when they take place at all, are a travesty of justice. Ihe "culprit" is confronted by ready-made evidence; lie has no witnesses, and is permitted no defence. When he ds led away from the Ohamber of Horrors, he does not even know whether he is acquitted or condemned. He is kept in maddening suspense until some night he is called out—never to return. The following morning a Chekist calls for his belongings, and the rest of the prisoners know that another coldblooded murder has been added to the countless numbers. And the relatives and friends of the unfortunates? They go on standing in line on the Lyubianka, the street where the ghastly Cheka is quartered, ior days and weeks, anxiously waiting for word from their own. At last they are told that the one they are looking for has been shot the previous night. In most cases the victim has been dead fora long time. Thus insult is added to the tragedy and grief of the mourner. Like the Okhrana of old, the Bolshevik Okhrana keeps its evil doinge from the public. But the truth will out sometimes. There is already considerable printed data on the honors within the walls of the Cheka—the brutal tortures, the gTaft. the widespread speculation. One need not go for information to the opponents of the Bolshevik regime. The Cheka itself occasionally furnishes much material. The weekly organ of the Cheka No. 3 contains an article on the necessity of torture. It ds entitled "Enough Sentimentality!" and says, among other things: "In dealing with enemies of Soviet Russia, it is necessary to use methods of torture to press confessions out of them, and then dispatch them to the other world."

ez'io'-