[2] The former palace of the Georgian kings, used as a prison for many years past.
CHAPTER II
A FAMOUS "AMNESTY"
My Foolish Credulity — A Boy Tchekist — Taken Out to be Shot — Mutual Reprisals — A Gallant Mountaineer — Identified by an Imbecile.
In November, 1922, in honour of the anniversary of the October Revolution in 1917, the Council of People's Commissaries of the R.S.F.S.R.[[3]] (Russia then still lived under that pseudonym) extended a full amnesty to all opponents of the Soviet power. This amnesty, which was signed by the flower of the Communist Party, formally promised complete oblivion of every manner of offence committed by White Guards of all ranks and categories.
I cannot say how I, who knew better than anyone the value of Bolshevist promises, who had waged a life-and-death struggle with the Soviet power for so many years, could have believed in the good faith of people who always lie. I paid for my unpardonable stupidity by my sufferings in the Solovetsky prison. May my fate serve as a warning to other credulous people!
On April, 1923, I presented myself at the Tcheka offices at Batoum. I was interrogated by an examining judge remarkable for his youth — an impudent lad of seventeen. The detective service in Soviet Russia is brilliantly staffed! When he had totted up my "offences" in detail, the boy Tchekist concluded his interrogation with the jeering cry:
"Ha, we don't use kid gloves with fellows like you!"
Nor did they. When I referred to the formal phrases of the amnesty, the examining judge roared with laughter.
"Take him to the cells. They'll show him the amnesty there."
They did.