Jailed for Freedom Part 63

Fancy a young girl student exiled to a village numbering a hundred houses, with the government allowance of 8 to 10 s.h.i.+llings a month to live on. Occupations were closed to her, and there was no opportunity to learn a trade. She was forbidden to leave the town even for a few hours. The villagers were for the most part in fear of being suspected if seen to greet politicals in the street.

"Without dress, without shoes, living in the nastiest huts, without any occupation, they [the exiles were mostly dying from consumption," said the Golos of February 2, 1881. They lived in constant fear of starvation. And the Government allowance was withdrawn if it became known that an exile received any monetary a.s.sistance from family or friends.

Those politicals condemned to hard labor in Siberia worked mostly in gold mines for three months out of twelve, during which period meat was added to their diet. Otherwise black bread was the main food of the diet.

When held in prisons awaiting trial or convicted and awaiting transfer into exile, politicals did no work whatever. Their only occupation was reading. Common criminals had to work in prison as well as in Siberia.

In the fortress of Sts. Peter and Paul,[1] Kropotkin was lodged in a cell big enough to shelter a big fortress gun (25 feet on the diagonal). The walls and floor were lined with felt to prevent communication with others. "The silence in these felt- covered cells is that of a grave," wrote Kropotkin . . . . "Here I wrote my two volumes on The Glacial Period." Here

[1]In the Trubeskoi bastion, one building in the fortress.

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he also prepared maps and drawings. This privilege was only granted, to him, however, after a strong movement amongst influential circles compelled it from the Czar.[1] The Geo- graphical Society for whom he was writing his thesis also made many pleas on his behalf. He was allowed to buy tobacco, writing paper and to have books-but no extra food.

Kropotkin says that political prisoners were not subjected to corporal punishment, through official fear of bloodshed.

But he must mean by corporal punishment actual beatings, for he says also, "The black holes, the chains, the riveting to bar rows are usual punishments." And some politicals were al- leged to have been put in oubliettes in the Alexis Ravelin[2]

which must have been the worst feature of all the tortures.

This meant immurement alive in cells, in a remote spot where no contact with others was possible, and where the prisoner would often be chained or riveted for years.

More recently there was some mitigation of the worst fea- tures of the prison regime and some additional privileges were extended to politicals.

All this applied to old Russia. There is no doc.u.mentary proof available yet, as to how Soviet Russia treats its offenders against the present government. The Const.i.tution of the Rus- sian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic' does not provide a status for political prisoners, but it does provide for their re lease. It specifically deals with amnesty which is proof of the importance with which it regards the question of political offenders. It says: "The All-Russian Central Executive Com mittee deal with questions of state such as . . . the right to declare individual and general amnesty.[4]

France has had perhaps the most enlightened att.i.tude of all the nations toward political offenders. She absolutely

[1]Set Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Kropotkin.

[2]Another section of Sts. Peter and Paul Fortress.

[3]Adopted by the 5th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, July 10, 1918. Reprinted from The Nation, January 4, 1919.

[4]Article 3, Chapter 9 . . . 49 q.

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guarantees special treatment, by special regulations, and does not leave it to the discretion of 'changing governments.

On August 7, 1884; Thiers, in a ministerial circular, laid down the fundamental principles upon which France has acted. The only obligation upon the defendant, according to this circular, was to prove the political nature of the offense, "that it should be demonstrated and incontestable that they have acted under the influence of their opinions."[1] Theirs advocated superior diet for political prisoners and no work.

His edict was followed by special regulations issued for politicals under the Empire, February 9th, 1867, through M.

Pietri, Prefect of the Seine. These regulations, ill.u.s.trative of the care France exercised at an early date over her politicals, defined the housing conditions, diet, intercourse with comrades inside the prison and with family and friends from the outside.

Their privacy was carefully guarded. No curious visitor was allowed to see a political unless the latter so desired.

Kropotkin wrote[2] of his incarceration in Clairvaux prison in 1888, to which he and twenty-two others were transferred from Lyons after being prosecuted for belonging to the International Workingmen's a.s.sociation: "In France, it is generally understood that for political prisoners the loss of liberty and the forced inactivity are in themselves so hard that there is no need to inflict additional hards.h.i.+ps."

In Clairvaux he and his comrades were given quarters in s.p.a.cious rooms, not in cells. Kropotkin and Emile Gautier, the French anarchist, were given a separate room for literary work and the Academy of Sciences offered them the use of its library.

There was no intercourse with common law prisoners. The politicals were allowed to wear their own clothes, to smoke, to buy food and wine from the prison canteen or have it brought

[1]Sigerson, Political prisoners at Home and Abroad, p. 89.

[2]Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Kropotkin.

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in; they were free of compulsory work, but might, if they chose, do light work for which they were paid. Kropotkin mentions the extreme cleanliness of the prison and the "excellent quality" of the prison food.

Their windows looked down upon a little garden and also commanded a beautiful view of the surrounding country. They played nine- pins in the yard and made a vegetable and flower garden on the surface of the building's wall. For other forms of recreation, they were allowed to organize themselves into cla.s.ses. This particular group received from Kropotkin lessons in cosmography, geometry, physics, languages and bookbinding. Kropotkin's wife was allowed to visit him daily and to walk with him in the prison gardens.

Sebastian Faure, the great French teacher and orator, was sentenced to prison after the anarchist terrorism in 1894 and while there was allowed to write his "La Douleur Universelle"

Paul La Fargue, son-in-law of Karl Marx, wrote his famous "The Right to be Lazy" in Sainte Pelagie prison.

France has continued this policy to date. Jean Grave, once a shoemaker and now a celebrated anarchist, was condemned to six months in La Sante prison for an offensive article in his paper, Les Temps Nouveaux. Such is the liberty allowed a political that while serving this sentence he was given paper and materials with which to write another objectionable article, called "La Societe Mourante et 1'Anarchie," for the publication of which he received another six months.

It is interesting to note the comparatively light sentences political offenders get in France. And then there is an established practice of amnesty. They rarely finish out their terms. Agitation for their release extends from the extreme revolutionary left to the members of the Chamber of Deputies, frequently backed by the liberal press.

Italy also distinguishes between political and common law

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offenders. The former are ent.i.tled to all the privileges of custodia honesta[1] which means they are allowed to wear their own clothes, work or not, as they choose; if they do work, one half their earnings is given to them. Their only penal obligation is silence during work, meals, school and prayers. A friend of Sr. Serrati, the ex-editor of the Italian journal Il Proletario, tells me that Serrati was a political prisoner during the late war; that he was sentenced to three and a half years, but was released at the end of six months, through pressure from the outside. But while there, he was allowed to write an article a day for Avanti, of which paper he was then an editor.

Even before the Franco-Prussian War German princ.i.p.alities recognized political offenders as such. The practice continued after the federation of German states through the Empire and up to the overthrow of Kaiser Wilhelm. Politicals were held in "honorable custody" in fortresses where they were deprived only of their liberty.

For revolutionary activities in Saxony in 1849, Bakunin[2] was arrested, taken to a Cavalry Barracks and later to Koeriigstein Fortress, where politicals were held. Here he was allowed to walk twice daily under guard. He was allowed to receive books, he could converse with his fellow prisoners and could write and receive numerous letters. In a letter to a friend $ he wrote that he was occupied in the study of mathematics and English, and that he was "enjoying Shakespeare." And .. : . "they treat me with extraordinary humanness."

Another letter to the same friend a month later said he was writing a defense of his political views in "a comfortable room,"

with "cigars and food brought in from a nearby inn."

[1]Sigerson, pp. 154-5.

[2]The Life of Michael Bakunin-Eine Biographie von Dr. Max Nettlau. (Privately printed by the author. Fifty copies reproduced by the autocopyist, Longhaus.) [3]To Adolph R- (the last name illegible) October 15, 1849.

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The death sentence was p.r.o.nounced against him in 1850 but commuted to imprisonment for life. The same year he was extradited to Austria where the offense was committed, then to Russia and on to Siberia in 1855, whence he escaped in 1860 in an American s.h.i.+p.

In 1869 Bebell[1] received a sentence of three weeks in Leipzig (contrast with Alice Paul's seven months' sentence) "for the propagation of ideas dangerous to the state." Later for high treason based upon Social-Democratic agitation he was sentenced to two years in a fortress. For lese majeste he served nine months in Hubertusburg-a fortress prison (in 1871). Here politicals were allowed to pay for the cleaning of their cells, to receive food from a nearby inn, and were allowed to eat together in the corridors. They were only locked in for part of the time, and the rest of the time were allowed to walk in the garden. They were permitted lights until ten at night; books; and could receive and answer mail every day. Bebel received permission to share cell quarters with the elder Lielr knecht (Wilhelm), then serving time for his internationalism. He says that political prisoners were often allowed a six weeks' leave of absence between sentences; when finis.h.i.+ng one and beginning a second.

According to Sigerson, politicals in Austria also were absolved from wearing prison clothes, might buy their own food and choose their work. I am told the same regime prevailed in Hungary under Franz Joseph.

The new const.i.tution of the German Republic adopted at Weimar July 31, 1919, provides that[2] "The President of the Republic shall exercise for the. government the right of pardon .. . . .

Government amnesties require a national law."

In the Scandinavian countries there is no provision for special consideration of ~ political prisoners, although a proposed

[1]My Life, August Bebel.

[2]Article 49.

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