A nauseating stench assails us as we enter the compulsory labor camp at Kharkov. The courtyard is filled with men and boys, incredibly emaciated, mere shadows of humans. Their faces yellow and eyes distended, bodies ragged, and barefoot, they forcibly remind me of starving pariahs in famine-stricken India. "The sewer is being repaired," the official accompanying us explains. Only a few prisoners are at work; the others stand about apathetically, or sprawl on the ground as if too weak for exertion. "Our worst scourge is disease," the guide remarks. "The men are undernourished and lack resistance. We have no medicine and we are short of physicians." Some of the prisoners surround our party, apparently taking us for officials. "Tovarishtchi," a young man appeals to us, "when will the Commission decide upon my case?" "Visitors," the guide informs him laconically. "We can't live on the pyock. The bread ration has been cut again. No...
Chapter V MEETING PEOPLE AT a conference of the Moscow Anarchists in March I first learned of the part some Anarchists had played in the Russian Revolution. In the July uprising of 1917 the Kronstadt sailors were led by the Anarchist Yarchuck; the Constituent Assembly was dispersed by Zhelezniakov; the Anarchists had participated on every front and helped to drive back the Allied attacks. It was the consensus of opinion that the Anarchists were always among the first to face fire, as they were also the most active in the reconstructive work. One of the biggest factories near Moscow, which did not stop work during the entire period of the Revolution, was managed by an Anarchist. Anarchists were doing important work in the Foreign Office and in all other departments. I learned that the Anarchists had virtually helped the Bolsheviki into power. Five months later, in April, 1918, machine guns were used to destroy the Moscow Anarchist Club and to...