Not long before I came to the Solovky, the Gpu of the Trans-Caucasian Soviet Republic had sent thither forty Tchetchentsy,[[28]] very old men. One of them looked out of the window of a hut, which is forbidden by some Tchekists, on which the whole party were sent to the Sekirova hill — notorious at the Solovky as the place of torture —, put into "stone sacks" (an operation described in a later chapter) and flogged with "Smolensky sticks" till they fainted. One of these aged men was 110 years old.

These old Tchetchentsy had been transported as hostages for their sons, grandsons and great-grandsons who had joined guerilla bands and were waging a ceaseless war with the Bolsheviks — a war which is still going on. They themselves had not committed any kind of offence.

The practice of taking hostages, and of carrying out violent reprisals on the relations and even the acquaintances of rebels and émigrés, has been developed by the Soviet power into an elaborate system of terror, which shrinks from nothing that may help it to attain the object in view — the submission of the entire Russian people to the will of the leaders of the Communist Party.

[25] Boris Savinkoff, the well-known Social Revolutionary leader, see p. 109.

[26] Smienoviekhovtsy, "signal-changers" — a name popularly given to people, formerly of anti-Soviet opinions, who have changed their political course and become reconciled to the Bolshevist Government.

[27] Sekretnye sotrudniki; secret collaborators (with the Gpu).

[28] A Caucasian nationality.

CHAPTER VIII
"POLITICALS": A FAVOURED CLASS

Modern Cave Dwellers — Why They are Better Treated — Cultural Privileges — Socialists' Courage and Discipline — Hunger Strikes — Common Criminals "Unloaded" — A Remarkable Soviet Pamphlet.

The "politicals and party men" on Solovetsky Island at the present time number about five hundred, including a hundred and fifty women and several dozen children. Children are placed on the same footing as adult prisoners as regards rights and obligations, and so receive rations. On Popoff Island there are now sixty male politicals and twenty women. Most of them are members of the Social Revolutionary, Social Democratic, "Bund" and Anarchist parties, and intermediary shades, transported to the Solovky for active opposition to the Soviet power in the years 1917-19 and passive criticism of its actions in the years that followed.