The Bolshevik Myth · Chapter
Prison and Concentration Camp explained
The narrator visits a compulsory labor camp in Kharkov and the Cold Hill Prison, witnessing horrific conditions, starvation, disease, and the suspension of food packages (peredatcha).
What happens
The narrator visits a compulsory labor camp in Kharkov and the Cold Hill Prison, witnessing horrific conditions, starvation, disease, and the suspension of food packages (peredatcha). Political prisoners, including Communists, Anarchists, and Mensheviki, are held without trial, and the death house evokes memories of past executions. The chapter contrasts the initial revolutionary promise of prison abolition with the brutal reality of the Bolshevik prison system.
Themes in this chapter
Human Suffering and Dehumanization
Prisoners are described as 'mere shadows of humans,' emaciated, diseased, and treated with bureaucratic indifference.
Betrayal of Revolutionary Ideals
The destruction of the old prison is contrasted with the new regime's brutal camps and death houses, betraying the promise of a prisonless society.
Terror and Violence
The death house and the terror of the condemned man, the use of hunger strikes, and the Cheka's executioners.
Characters to notice
- Emma Goldman
Part of the visiting party; asks to see a political prisoner.
- Tchernenko
Political prisoner at Cold Hill Prison, arrested to prevent his seating in the Soviet, escaped and rearrested.
- Liza Zorin
Quoted by the narrator as having claimed the death penalty was abolished and prisons empty.
Key passages
“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.”
The narrator is overwhelmed by the foul smell and the sight of starving, skeletal prisoners at the Kharkov labor camp.
Opens the chapter with a visceral depiction of dehumanization.
“The death penalty is abolished, our prisons empty, he had said to me soon after my arrival in Russia.”
Zorin had assured the narrator that capital punishment was gone and prisons were vacant.
Contrasts revolutionary rhetoric with the grim reality of the death house.