Letter to Bolshevik

To the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik)

We appeal to you, asking you to pay a minimum of attention to our request. We are prisoners who are returning from the Solovetsky concentration camp because of our poor health. We went there full of energy and good health, and now we are returning as invalids, broken and crippled emotionally and physically. We are asking you to draw your attention to the arbitrary use of power and the violence that reign at the Solovetsky concentration camp in Kemi and in all sections of the concentration camp. It is difficult for a human being even to imagine such terror, tyranny, violence, and lawlessness. When we went there, we could not conceive of such a horror, and now we, crippled ourselves, together with several thousands who are still there, appeal to the ruling center of the Soviet state to curb the terror that reigns there. As though it weren't enough that the Unified State Political Directorate [OGPU] without oversight and due process sends workers and peasants there who are by and large innocent (we are not talking about criminals who deserve to be punished), the former tsarist penal servitude system in comparison to Solovky had 99% more humanity, fairness, and legality.

[...] People die like flies, i.e., they die a slow and painful death; we repeat that all this torment and suffering is placed only on the shoulders of the proletariat without money, i.e., on workers who, we repeat, were unfortunate to find themselves in the period of hunger and destruction accompanying the events of the October Revolution, and who committed crimes only to save themselves and their families from death by starvation; they have already borne the punishment for these crimes, and the vast majority of them subsequently chose the path of honest labor. Now because of their past, for whose crime they have already paid, they are fired from their jobs. Yet, the main thing is that the entire weight of this scandalous abuse of power, brute violence, and lawlessness that reign at Solovky and other sections of the OGPU concentration camp is placed on the shoulders of workers and peasants; others, such as counterrevolutionaries, profiteers and so on, have full wallets and have set themselves up and live in clover in the Soviet State, while next to them, in the literal meaning of the word, the penniless proletariat dies from hunger, cold, and back- breaking 14-16 hour days under the tyranny and lawlessness of inmates who are the agents and collaborators of the State Political Directorate [GPU].

If you complain or write anything ("Heaven forbid"), they will frame you for an attempted escape or for something else, and they will shoot you like a dog. They line us up naked and barefoot at 22 degrees below zero and keep us outside for up to an hour. It is difficult to describe all the chaos and terror that is going on in Kemi, Solovky, and the other sections of the concentrations camp. All annual inspections uncover a lot of abuses. But what they discover in comparison to what actually exists is only a part of the horror and abuse of power, which the inspection accidently uncovers. (One example is the following fact, one of a thousand, which is registered in GPU and for which the guilty have been punished: THEY FORCED THE INMATES TO EAT THEIR OWN FECES. "Comrades," if we dare to use this phrase, verify that this is a fact from reality, about which, we repeat, OGPU has the official evidence, and judge for yourself the full extent of effrontery and humiliation in the supervision by those who want to make a career for themselves.

[...] We are sure and we hope that in the All-Union Communist Party there are people, as we have been told, who are humane and sympathetic; it is possible, that you might think that it is our imagination, but we swear to you all, by everything that is sacred to us, that this is only one small part of the nightmarish truth, because it makes no sense to make this up. We repeat, and will repeat 100 times, that yes, indeed there are some guilty people, but the majority suffer innocently, as is described above. The word law, according to the law of the GPU concentration camps, does not exist; what does exist is only the autocratic power of petty tyrants, i.e., collaborators, serving time, who have power over life and death. Everything described above is the truth and we, ourselves, who are close to the grave after 3 years in Solovky and Kemi and other sections, are asking you to improve the pathetic, tortured existence of those who are there who languish under the yoke of the OGPU's tyranny, violence, and complete lawlessness....

To this we subscribe:
G. Zheleznov, Vinogradov, F. Belinskii.
Dec. 14, 1926

Letter to Bolshevik
Facsimile of the letter

Kolio Kolev from the Slunchev Briag concentration camp (Bulgaria)

...Sweat and blood spilled all the time. Mircho Spasov wanted "an awful lot of work". We had no spare time. They brought in a boy from the village of Glozhene, an orphan. Before I knew he was a neighbor of mine, he was killed. My closest friend was Bozhidar from Sofia who arrived four days before me and stayed on till the closing of the camp. There were many attempts to escape but all failed. The fugitives were either killed on the spot or in front of us for our edification. If the Gypsy man, who counted us, erred in the counting, the first row would be laid down and beaten to tell where the runaways were. He erred on purpose. Sometimes, a working group of 20-30 was allocated to the Bulgarian communist party villa on the hill. We carried stones, iron, water, cement - a palace built by slave labor. Blago or some of the Gypsies would put a stick on the path and we had to jump over it with the stone. Whoever touched the stick, was beaten up right away. If he could stand up, he could go, if not - they finished him off.

...Killings were done in all possible ways: With sticks, machine tools, knives, strangulation.

... They were two girls and a guy from Burgas. Accused of waiting in short skirts on the pier American sailors to arrive by boats. The three were tortured all night. All night terrible screams were heard, although they shut up their mouths. How many times they were raped, nobody knows. In the morning the boy was dead, and the girls, torn clothes, disheveled hair, bleeding were taken out of the commanders' office.

...Sore wounds swarming with worms Were treated by Bai Georgi, the paramedic, in two ways. Either asked someone to urinate on the wound, or picked and plucked the worms out with peeled twigs. Every sick man was doomed. Once a man jumped from the silos. He wanted to escape on the departing train but fell on the rails and the car trampled on his legs. He was taken to the hospital, in two hours was brought back with amputated legs. He was thrown in the "morgue" at the back of the toilet and died in terrible pain. He was alive among corpses, asking for water, moaning. I remember Dancho from around Plovdiv. He had two 25 leva bills left - there were such bills at that time - and wanted to treat us on January 19, Epiphany, for his birthday and name day, he was turning 24. He asked a sergeant to buy some peppermint drops but the militiaman betrayed him. Gazdov called him in front of the line. He was tied up to a pole with his arms lifted. He was in a high-school sweatshirt; it pulled up and uncovered his body. It was very cold, -15° C (5° F). Gazdov ordered that he was splashed with water every other hour. On each splash, they told him, "Do you know that they splash for health on birthdays and name days?" He was left on the pole for two days and they never stopped splashing. The third day Gazdov arrived to the quarry, mounted on horseback and pulling Dancho on a rope tied to the saddle. He was still alive, covered with ice. He gathered us to see him. "Any others willing to celebrate?" Dancho just moaned, "Brothers. I'm. gone." And died.

...The trolleys were to be pushed on rails for 150-200 meters (500-600 ft). You watch not to finish up first, nor last. Because a group that finished up first was disbanded. They added a sick or disabled person to it. I will say it openly - he was not useful. He was a burden for the rest who hit the target, and if they missed it - death followed. While I was there maybe 1,000 people were killed. I have not counted them, but not less than 800. And that was only one year.

...Once, Mircho Spasov was making a speech And Vasko from Strumiani spoke up: "Comrade lieutenant colonel (he was lieutenant colonel then), why are we here with no trials and sentences, why are we not allowed to write and receive letters?" Mircho Spasov said, "You are gathered here not to serve sentences, not to survive, but for physical and sterile extermination, because you are the seed of rotten American capitalism." And if someone thought that he could become a bird and fly over the barbed wire, he would immediately turn into a kite and would not let a feather out. Then they earmarked the boy. In a week, Vasko was gone. For me, Mircho Spasov and the party were to blame most. He said, it was an order form the party and he had to feed his kids. But they were degenerates, power-thirsty, eager to cut throats and to hang.

Kolio Kolev from the Slunchev Briag concentration camp (Bulgaria)

Translation from Bulgarian by Dr. Neli Hadjiyska and Dr. Valentin Hadjiyski

Excerpt from Minutes "A" No. 101 of the [Bulgarian communist party] politburo meeting of June 5, 1962, with the participation of (first secretary] Todor Zhivkov, Boyan Bulgaranov, Mitko Grigorov, Raiko Damianov, Georgi Tsankov [interior minister], Encho Staikov, Ivan Mihailov, Anton Yugov, Dimiter Dimov, Todor Prahov, Boris Velchev, Tano Tsolov, and Zhivko Zhivkov.

Georgi Tsankov: "In 1959, we discussed the situation and came to the conclusion that we couldn't keep the Belene camp any longer. We suggested to Comrade Zhivkov it might be reasonable to close this camp. If there were people that were incorrigible they could be sent to prison. Belene was left aside for more harder times. At stake were a group of 500-600 people - what were we to do with them? Should we let them go and start chasing them anew, or isolate them someplace? It was then that we decided to open a quarry in Lovech to lock up these people in and reeducate them through hard physical labor. There was no politburo resolution to that effect. We were authorized to start such camps under the People's Militia Act. Mircho Spasov and I have often conversed about these camps. The top responsibility here, certainly, was with the Minister of the Interior, although Mircho Spasov was directly in charge of the camps."

Boris Velchev: "We considered that Mircho Spasov should be removed later. He did what he did with the awareness he was serving the party. Until the summer of 1961 people were sent there with the signatures of the district prosecutor, the first secretary of the district party committee, and the district director of the interior. Later, they were sent without the prosecutor's notice."

The Unspoken About the Lovech and Skravena Camps, Christo Christov, Democratsia, 1999 (In Bulgaian)

Translation from Bulgarian by Dr. Neli Hadjiyska and Dr. Valentin Hadjiyski