Communism -- Soviet Union; Goldman, Emma, 1869-1940; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Personal narratives, American
On the night of April 25th we were attacked by Red soldiers and
armed Tchekists and ordered to dress and get ready to leave the
Butyrki. Some of the politicals, fearing that they were to be taken
to execution, refused to go and were terribly beaten. The women
especially were maltreated, some of them being dragged down the
stairs by their hair. Many have suffered serious injury. I myself
was so badly beaten that my whole body feels like one big sore. We
were taken out by force in our night-clothes and thrown into
wagons. The comrades in our group knew nothing of the whereabouts
of the rest of the politicals, including Mensheviks, Social
Revolutionists, Anarchists, and Anarcho-syndicalists.
Ten of us, among them Fanya Baron, have been brought here.
Conditions in this prison are unbearable. No exercise, no fresh
air; food is scarce and filthy; everywhere awful dirt, bedbugs, and
lice. We mean to declare a hunger strike for better treatment. We
have just been told to get ready with our things. They are going
to send us away again. We do not know where to.
[Signed] T.
Upon the circumstances of the Butyrki raid becoming known the students
of the Moscow University held a protest meeting and passed resolutions
condemnatory of the outrage. Thereupon the student leaders were arrested
and the University closed. The non-resident students were ordered to
leave Moscow within three days on the pretext of lack of rations. The
students volunteered to give up their _payok_, but the Government
insisted on their quitting the capital. Later, when the University was
re-opened, Preobrazhensky, the Dean, admonished the students to refrain
from any political expressions on pain of being expelled from the
University. Some of the arrested students were exiled, among them
several girl students, for the sole crime of being members of a circle
whose aim was to study the works of Kropotkin and other Anarchist
authors. The methods of the Tsar were resurrected by his heirs to the
throne in Bolshevik Russia.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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