SOVIET CRUELTY

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 48, 25 February 1921, Page 8

SOVIET CRUELTY

ILL-TREATMENT OF

BRITISH

VILE PRISON CONDITIONS

POLICY OF CALCULATED

BRUTALITY.

A lurid light is thrown on the savagery of Bolshevism-and the Bufferings of British prisoners in Russia under the Red Terror by the Interim Report— published as a White Paper recently— of the Committee to Collect- Information on Russia. The report k signed by Lord E'mmott (chairman), Sir William Ryland Adkins, X.0., M.P., Sir Ellis. Hume-Williams, K.C., M.P., and Major Watts Morgan, M.P. Appointed in May of this year, the committee originally included Mr. William Braoe y M.P., but he resigned in July, Major Morgan being appointedl in his place.. The terms of reference were : To inquire into conditions under which British subjects were recently imprisoned or detained in Russia, and generally to obtain information in regard to the economic 1 and political situation in that country. COMMITTEE'S CONCLUSIONS. After having taken into consideration the conditions existing in Russia' at the' time, including the serious shortage of food and medicines, and the difference between British and Russian standards of pi-ison life and discipline, the committee came to these conclusions : That the majority of British subjects arrested were imprisoned without trial and without reason assigned. That these British subjects so imprisoned, together with others charged with political offences, were treated' with, calculated brutality, and subjected to 'terrible physical ajid mental suffering. That bo attempt was made to differentiate between the treatment m prison of.British prisoners and of hardened ajid notorious criminals. That with regard to British subjects the Soviet 'Government systematically ignored the obligations of justice and humanity. . That the Soviet Government proved themselyes % incapable of discharging the responsibilities towards British subject's detained, in Russia which the successful revolution had placed in their hands. EXTERMINATION" OF THE BOURGEOISIE. ■ The present report deals only with the conditions under which British subjects were imprisoned or detained in Russia, and tho evidence on \Yhich. it is based. is derived from : (1) The condition of British refugees on arrival at the frontier; (2} the statements of the refugees themselves; (3) the statements of other persons having knowledge of Russian prison conditions ; and (4) th« contents of an official Soviet Government document which «has only recently reached this country.

The tribunal (states the Committee) before which prisoners -were brought, or rather which was responsible for their imprisonment, wus the Extraordinary Commission or Chrezvychaika, an administrative organ, "set up to repress coun-ter-revolutionarißs, and to put into actual practioe their conceptions of class war." Dzerzhmsky, the President of tho All-Russian Commission, sitting at Moscow, "would appear to be a man of abnormal mentality and of a sinister reputation." An extract is given from the Red Terror, a weekly journal of the Extraordinary Co •nmission, prescribing the ■■ methods he pursued with regard to prisoners:— .

We are no longer waging war against separate individuals, we are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. ' Do not seek in the dossier of the accused tor proofs as to whether he opposed the Soviet Government by word or deed. The first question that should be put is to ■what class be belongs, of what extraction, what-education and profession. These questions should decide the fate of the accused. Herein lies the meaning and the essence of the Red Terror. ARRESTED BECAUSE THEY WERB BRITISH. The Committee state that no . charge whatever was brought against one half of tho considerable number of British prisoners released from Russia whom they examined. Several were told that they were arrested because they were British subjects, thus indicating that at the moment of their arrest a policy of reprisals was being earned out. Usually prisoners were arrested in the middle of the night, . and violence and threats , were not infrequently used., Miss Ftrencla, a landowner and well; known philanthropist, was tempted to say ,to those arresting her: "Are you sure there.are quite enough of you, because there is another woman in the house besides myself!" The property of the arrested, persons was taken away,even though the prisoners themselves were afterwards released. In one case a prisoner was robbed of 50,000 roubles, and in another of 23,700 Tsarist roubles, many articles of clothing, and a considerable quantity of jewellery. The examination, if it took place at all, was a firce, and affcen accompanied by acts calculated to inspire terror. Although no physical torture was re- ; ported as having been used in the case of British subjects, yet serious mental torture was caused to "men and women whose vitality was lowered by bad food, by crowded, filthy, and verminous prisons, and. by the nervous tension caused by seeing so many fellow-prisoners sent to their death.' 1 ANOTHER ' "BLACK #OLE OF CALCUTTA."

Mr. J. R. Holdcroft, one of the arrested, on being asked the object of examining people at night, said: "Because, people are asleep, and they are just wakened up and they fcako them right off, and they have not the time to realise or think what they are going to say, and they generally get more information put. of them that way ; and very often they used to. put' a revolver to one's head and get information that way. They would say: 'If you do not say so-and-so you will be shot.'" He added that they sometimes arrested the wives and children of people "in order to terrorise them."

None of the 18 or 20 witnesses who were arrested and whom the committee examined was ever officially tried by the Extraordinary Commission. Some were interrogated by officials, apparently in the hope, of inducing them to inculpate themselves or to give information which would incriminate others, but none had an opportunity of questioning witnesses for the prosecution or of doing more than answer questions put to them by the officials.

More than one witness likened the prison of the Extraordinary Commission to tho Black Hole of Calcutta. ■ People were huddled together so closely that there was no room to lie or even sit do\vn. Mr. J. Martin stated that ho was taken into an underground cell about 60 feet by 30 feet, in which there were 300 or 400 people.

. Mr. A. V. Frank said he was in a room which was b;i:ie prepared for 32 persons, for whose accommodation shelves were being built around the walls. In this room . 170 people were, confined, sleeping underneath the shelves and all over l-he door, When Mr. Fran.lt complained because of the cell beinjj bo

crowded, and stated that he was an Englishman, and was there as a hostage, one of ttve guards'" took pity on, him" and said: " All right, we will free a place for you." At half past 10 he called a man out of one of the cells, and' the man was shot within five minutes, and Mr. Frank was made to take his place. WOMEN'S PIJGHT; In another very small room there were eleven ladies, eight men, and ten Chinamen, while in a room, the dimensions of which were about 22ft by lift, the averrage number of persons was as high as 30. . > Coupled with this overcrowding the sanitary conditions were both unhealthy and repellent to a degree almost indescribable. -With regard to parasites, Mr.. Cooke, another of the arrested men, said that " verminous" was not a strong enough word to describe the condition of the prison of the Extraordinary Commission. " Tile lice were there by the million. There was no means of keeping them down. As to bujs, I killed sixty or seventy of them the first night of my stay there on the walls alone." Another witness stated that one afternoon he found on his singlet 76 lice, and that was repeated day after day. 1 TThe prisons were impregnated with disease, and jio proper precautions were taken to prevent it from spreading. The healthy and sick lay together, there was no general practice of removing the, sick, and they often died where they lay without being removed to'the hospital. No precaution.l! whatever were taken against the spread, of typhus. • PRISON OFFICIALS' CONDUCT. . The brutal conduct of prison officials is commented upon, and various instances are given. When imprisoned at Simbirsk Miss Ffrench was bullied and laughed at by the .President of- the Soviet Executive, an ex-blacksmith, who "thought it great fun" so to. behave, 1 because his mother had at one time been a , washer-woman on. one .of Miss Ffrench's estates. Mr. J. Martin stated that o*i leaving hospital he was made to walk in 25 to 30 degrees of frost without his clothes,. which were then being disinfected, and with only a rag thrown over him and a pair of goloshes on his feet. Mr. Cooke was inarched at the point of the bayonet for two and a-ha-lf miles through deep snow, with the thermometer below zero. "I had to do it almost barefooted, because I could not get my shoes on," he said, and was then kept in a cold cellar for one and a-half hours. This treatment and the combing! effect of the vermin caused a, relapse, and his legs swelled to almost three times their proper size. When a month afterwards he was moved to the Andronievsky Monastery lie appealed to be allowed to> go on a motor ambulance, because of the state of his legs, and not to be made to undertake the four-mile walk on foot. Hie guards threatened to beat him .if he" did not walk" the distance, and he was forced to obey their orders. It is unnecessary,, adds the committee, to dwell on the brutality\)f such behaviour. . ' ' EXECUTED FOE BUSINESS TRANS- j ACTIONS. ■ '. ■ 9 Two instances of the execution of British subjects were reported. Lady Marling stated that a. Mr. Charles Davison was shot on 16th January, 1920, either for selling some of his old clothes; or for alleged connection with a conspiracy,' and the execution of Mr. George Frederick Smith was, the committee - were informed, recorded in the Izvestia, an official Government organ! His offence appeared to have been that of "speculation," he having sold bis old motor tiresto provide food for his wife and children. "It therefore appears," continues the report, "that two of! our fellowcountrymen have been executed for. acts which outside Kussia are generally regarded as legitimate business transactions."

The committee cannot accept as even approximately true the official statement of the Soviet Government that only 8389 persons were shot by command of the Extraordinary Commission during the. period 1918 to July, 1919. They agree" with' Mrs. Philip Snowden that a much greater number than 10,000 were put to death without trial, that many of them were shot in circumstances of great cruelty, and that their relatives knew nothing about it.

As to prison rations, they varied in different prisons, but generally consisted o£ a little warm water, and some black bread, varying in . amount according to the prison from one pound to half a pound per day downwards. This was supplemented from time to time by some watery soup, and on rare occasions by a little horse flesh.

The committee then quote from an offioial report of the Soviet Government, which had been recently placed in thenhands, and which confirmed the statement made in regard to the overcrowding and insanitary conditions' of the prisons' in Moscow. The Soviet document shows that the prisons were not only overcrowded, "out were filthy and verminou6, that the sanitary provisions were inadequate, and thai the food in maiiy cases waa of lAd quality, and in some below starvation level.