CHEKA HORRORS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 848, 27 October 1923, Page 9

CHEKA HORRORS.

IN MOSCOW DUNGEON. ‘ LA BELLE SIMANOVA. Four days after my arrival in Moscow b was arrested in my room at the Hotel Sa.voy at 2 a.m. I was told that I bad failed to prosent.my card at Trotzky’s War Office, and incidentally was the correspondent of naughty, bourgeois papers. So writes Mr. Richard Eaton, from Riga, to the London Daily Mails , It is very hard to think Clearly at 2 a.m., particularly if you have been opt the night before, and I failed .to ,think of any' argument to convince, the rather disagreeable agent of the Cheka (Revolutionary Tribunal) that I must .tell a fellow-journal-ist across the landing that I was on my way to another land. I was first put in the Sab'ishnik (dogkennel), ns the rooms in the basements of the Lubianka or State prison are called. I found myself in a room about 30ft by 15ft. There was a small skylight, but it had been nailed up. There Were several benches in the room, made of three boards supported by two saw-horses. There were 21. men in my particular kennCl. IN DUNGEON WITH RATS. Three days and a-half after, my arrival the examining magistrate sent for me. Although my head was swimming I realised that ho was-insisting that I must be a Ho was so displeased that I did not agree with him that he , sent mo to a dark coll in the basement. There wore no windows, and it was very difficult for me to share my thick black broad and my tea kettloful of boiled water with the rats, which were the only other occupants; Fort3'-eight hours, later the examining magistrate sent , for mo again. The damp air had so stimulated my appetite and the darkness so blinded mo that I could only see a loaf of white bread on the magistrate’s desk. Remembering that Russia was a Communist country, I broke off a large piece from the loaf and ate it. , The members of the Cheka were amazed. It was good bread, placed upon the desk as a reward for good prisoners. Having taken my reward in advance, I set out to be good. There was the most beautiful woman that I had soon in ■ all Russia listening to mo. About 30, .of the typical ffilondo Russian typo, with, a slightly turned up nose, she was the picture of innocence. She was Simanova, the chief of the foreign section of the Cheka. | When the examining magistrate' asked me once more (in German) if I were a spy, I denied it, .and I was able to sec Simanona change; hor-dyes blazed with a maniacal light and she innocently suggested in Russian: “If he does rot tell us we shall have to kill ;hini.” A moment. later ipy examiner assured mo that T-should bo freed in an hour if I would agree to bo a spy for the Cheka. I agreed with - such; -alacrity that I aroused Snnanova’s suspicions “And then you’ll Toll the English Mission about it” she said I admitted that I should mos{ cerWinly do, so. A soldier appeared as if by magic, and I was soon in the “dog kennel” once more. EXILES. . The next evening the black prison van conveyed me and 30 other prisoners to the Butirici prison-. ■ (i I was assigriecl to a large room in the quarantine corridor, about 50 by 25 feet. Against the wall, Were slung 28 hammocks, and there was a long table on which two prisoners slept at night, and we cut our bread by day. There were two windows. ’ As soon as prisoners' papprs are ready they are sent to Archangel or Tashkent in Turkestan. More than SO,OOO men and women have been exiled thus since Marcli 15. , This fate I escaped when, as the result of a note smuggled at the cost of £lO to friends in the great world of Moscow without, I was released. ‘ I saw Simanova again. She was eager to know how I had communicated with the world. My refusal to tell her, despite the bribe of a large piece of white bread, caused her eyes to flash again.