It is impossible to continue silent. It has constantly been brought to the knowledge of the Viborg Soviet (Petrograd) of the terrible state of affairs existing in the city prisons. That people all the time are dying there of hunger; _that people are detained six and eight months without examination, and that in many cases it is impossible to learn why they have been arrested, owing to officials being changed, departments closed, and documents lost_. In order to confirm, or otherwise, these rumors, the Soviet decided to send on the 3d November a commission consisting of the president of the Soviet, the district medical officer, and district military commissar, to visit and report on the “Kresti” prison. Comrades! What they saw and what they heard from the imprisoned is impossible to describe. Not only were all rumors confirmed, but conditions were actually found much worse than had been stated. I was pained and ashamed. I myself was imprisoned under czardom in that same prison. Then all was clean, and prisoners had clean linen twice a month. Now, not only are prisoners left without clean linen, but many are even without blankets, and, as in the past, for a trifling offense they are placed in solitary confinement in cold, dark cells. But the most terrible sights we saw were in the sick-bays. Comrades, there we saw living dead who hardly had strength enough to whisper their complaints that they were dying of hunger. In one ward, among the sick a corpse had lain for several hours, whose neighbors managed to murmur, “Of hunger he died, and soon of hunger we shall all die.” Comrades, among them are many who are quite young, who wish to live and see the sunshine. If we really possess a workmen’s government such things should not be.