CHAPTER VI
"COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARIES"
Hardest Labour Done by "K.R.'s" — Counter-revolutionary: a Comprehensive Term — A Variegated Multitude — Special Persecution of the Clergy — Prominent Clerical Prisoners.
On Solovetsky Island the "politicals and party men" live in separate cells — hermits' caves — and on Popoff Island in a special hut. Both at the monastery and in the Kem camp the "K.R.'s" live in company with the ordinary criminals. The cells of the monastery and the huts of the camps are filled to overflowing with a carefully mixed crowd of "counter-revolutionaries" and shpana.
The "K.R.'s" not only do all the hardest labour, and have to keep their own quarters clean, but are obliged to cleanse the criminals' bedsteads of dirt, remains of food, spittle and lice. Whenever a new party of "K.R.'s" arrive, they are compelled to clean out the huts, which the shpana have made so filthy that the task makes many of the "K.R.'s" sick. In 1924, it took 1,500 "K.R.'s" two whole months to clean out the camp on Popoff Island. It is sufficient to say that the criminals very often fulfil the requirements of Nature on the spot, i.e., in the huts.
The shpana, of course, are not in the least grateful for having all this done for them. On the contrary, this work of the "K.R.'s", so utterly degrading to human self-respect, is accepted by the criminals as a matter of course, and only exposes those who do it to fresh outrage from the shpana, supported by the camp personnel.
For example, when we had cleansed the hut indicated by the authorities of all the filth that was in it, the grateful shpana sent us an ultimatum, with a detailed schedule of the quantities of bread, sugar, tobacco, tea, etc., which were to be handed over immediately to the criminal who brought the ultimatum. If we failed to comply with the ultimatum, we were told, we should be first beaten and then plundered in more thorough fashion.
We had to hand over the things demanded. Ultimatums of this kind are very fashionable among the shpana; the "K.R.'s" are snowed under with them, both at the monastery and in the Kem camp.
It is very hard to give an exact account or analysis of the prisoners labelled "K.R.'s." Their number is considerable — there are nearly three thousand on Solovetsky Island — and they are composed of such variegated elements that a general definition of a "K.R." is very hard to arrive at. A division of them into groups, even an approximate one, will enlighten the reader in a general sense as to who the "K.R.'s" are, and why they are in the Solovky, but it is bound to be incomplete; there are in the camps many "K.R.'s" whom one does not know where to place.
There are in the Northern Camps for Special Purposes many representatives of the so-called liberal professions — engineers, barristers, literary men, artists, teachers, doctors. There are many teachers from the primary and secondary schools and from the universities, both men and women; the latter are in a majority. There are a considerable number of non-party peasants and workmen, artisans and small employees. The Cossacks of the Don, the Kuban and Siberia, and the peoples of the Caucasus, are strongly represented. Of the non-Russians who are Soviet subjects the most numerous are Estonians, Poles, Karelians (some of those who returned from Finland on the strength of an "amnesty")[21] and Jews. The last-named are sent to the Solovky, in most cases with their families, either for adhering to Zionism, or for "economic counter-revolution," or for so-called "armed banditism" — by which the Gpu understands anything it pleases, from membership (even in the past) of a Monarchist party to the manufacture of counterfeit notes.
There are many foreigners in the Solovky; I will allude to them in greater detail later.
The largest categories of all consist of officers of the old and the new armies, business men, pre-Revolution and of the "Nepman"[22] order, important representatives of the old regime, the bureaucracy and the aristocracy, and also the clergy.
At the present time there are some three hundred bishops, priests and monks in the Solovky; to this number should be added several hundred laymen who were sent to the Solovky along with them, generally under Clause 72 of the Criminal Code — "ecclesiastical counter-revolution, resistance to the confiscation of church valuables, propaganda, the education of children in a religious sense," and so on. The clergy at the Solovky, though more oppressed and humiliated by the camp authorities than any other category of prisoners, are remarkable for the submissiveness and stoicism with which they endure their moral and physical sufferings.
Being accustomed to hard bodily labour from childhood, the clergy are rightly considered to be the best workers in the camps, and from this point of view are almost valued by the administration, though it exploits them infamously. Priests are sent to do all the most exhausting tasks. For example, whole sections of the narrow-gauge railway were laid entirely by clerics.
All kinds of religious services, of course, are forbidden. One of the priests in the camp on Popoff Island, a feeble old man, died. He begged the commandant with tears in his eyes to allow the Vladika Illarion to administer the Holy Sacrament to him. The commandant refused in abusive terms.
Every day in the year is counted as a working day, and at Easter and Christmas the authorities endeavour to give the clergy the most degrading work possible — for example, cleaning out the latrines.
Among the most prominent clerics confined in the Northern Camps for Special Purposes are the following:
The Vladika Illarion (Trotsky), head of the diocese of Moscow and the right-hand man of the late Patriarch Tikhon. Neither when at liberty nor in prison has the Metropolitan Illarion ever entered into conflict with the Soviet power; but he has always been a vehement champion of pure Orthodoxy as a counterpoise to the "living Church," which is liberally subsidised by the Gpu. For the defence of his faith, and for his intimate connection with the Patriarch Tikhon, the bishop was sent to Archangel for three years and served his term of punishment under the most horrifying conditions. He returned to Moscow and again vigorously opposed the "living Church," took a skilful part in religious discussions, mercilessly shattered the Communistic babble of his opponent Lunatcharsky,[23] and was transported once more — this time to the Solovky.
The Vladika Masuil (Lemeshevsky) directed the affairs of the diocese of Petrograd after the shooting of the Metropolitan Venianin. Sentenced to transportation under Clause 72 of the Criminal Code — "ecclesiastical counter-revolution" — by which the Bolsheviks understand, inter alia, the defence of Orthodoxy against the destructive attacks of the "living Church," the bishop arrived at the Solovky in September, 1924. Six other bishops and monks and twelve laymen were sent there at the same time and for the same cause.
Bishop Seraphim (Kolpinsky), Bishop Peter (Sokoloff), Acting Bishop of Saratoff, and Bishop Pitirim (Kryloff), the Igumen of the Kazan Monastery, as well as about fifteen members of the black and white clergy from that monastery, were all sent to the Solovky under this same Clause 72. Hundreds of other bishops, priests and monks were transported, not only because the religion they professed was "opium for the people,"[24] but because they would not approve the plundering of the churches for purposes which had nothing to do with the relief of the famine victims, and which they denounced to the public as the work of the supporters of the "living Church," bought by the Government.
[21] They had taken refuge in Finland after the suppression by the Bolsheviks of the rebellion in Eastern Karelia at the beginning of 1922.
[22] The term "Nepman" was applied to business men who grew rich under the "N.E.P." (New Economic Policy), introduced by the Soviet Government in 1922.
[23] People's Commissary for Education in the Soviet Government.
[24] Lenin's phrase.