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Show I,. W EV- I IftfeSOl Stranger Than Fiction, the j I ImBIII Fascinating True Story of I I What She Saw with Her Own I Eyes of the Thrilling Events I I That Followed the Over- 1 I row tzar's Power I "The Dragon of Czarism," a cartoon which was widely circulated In lR k tUt I Russia just before the revolution , ;.i JjMk'- I By Mme. Anastasia Suvorina Chapter VII Copyright, 192S AN OUR way home from the piti- 1 ful travesty of a school where my friend taught "art" we beheld four or five army trucks in front of a house and people being loaded into them S by the soldiers. I asked one of the guards W what it was all about. He glanced at me and made an ugly gesture to one of l his comrades. The latter grasped me S by the hand, exclaiming: 1 "Girlie, you can come along, with the 1 rest. You look strong and fit for the 1 Job-" "What is it? What do you want from R me?" I asked, frightened. m The guard lifted me up, another m reached down his hands, and thus I was W pulled into the truck along with the rest. All my protests and those of my 3 companion availed nothing. With me in H the truck were at least fifteen or twenty m, others, just as frightened as I was. What W was going to happen to us, no one could m explain. B' As soon as all the trucks were filled, ft they carried us through the city and out If to a graveyard. There the guards gave us shovels and we were commanded to dig graves for the hundreds of dead bodies which were decaying in the prisons, hospitals and private houses, and which the administration was going I to bury at night. At first the digging was rather easy work, but when the gTaves became deeper, and the hands grew tired, I began be-gan to feel exhaustion and pain in my muscles. After digging some four or five hours I felt utterly exhausted and hungry. hun-gry. It began to rain and I was soaked I to the skin. We dug graves till late at night, and were fed only with hot cabbage soup and a piece of black bread. When it was dark, trucks began to bring the corpses to the graveyard and we were compelled to help bury them. That night we buried over six hundred corpses. When I was at last allowed to ( go home I was a wreck in mind and body as a result of thig ghastly experience. But such hardships as my grave-digging experience pale into insignificance by comparison with some of the other things which countless men and women of education and refinement had to endure. en-dure. I must tell you how Soviet rule brought an era of cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism '. There is every reason to believe the practice of eating human flesh something some-thing which civilized people, as a rule have to shudder over only as they read B about it in books became a terrible I reality in Petrograd and other parts" of Russia. From the lips of my friend, Dr Anisimoff I myself heard how the piece H of meat he had purchased for a leg oi I veal at the Soviet butcher shop in the H Scnnoi Market turned out to be humar flesh and bone the leg, very probably B of a younpr woman. H The doctor is a man to be believed H He is one of Pctrograd's most cele- H bratcd physicians and surgeons, a mar H whose reputation was firmly establishes H long before anybody had heard of Bol H shevism. In his own finely equippct H laboratory he made the investigations H which confirmed his suspicion that can H nibalism was beinjr openly practiced. H Dr. Anisimoff had paid 1,000 ruble: H for the supposed veal. At the marke H he had given it only a casual glance H but when he came to unwrap it at hi: H home he instantly saw the human re semblance in the shape of the leg and in 1 ";?yf " . 1 , r the character of the flesh and the ex- V- ?m posed cut end of bone. As you may imagine, the doctor at ljjNhi once made other plans for his dinner ; and with scant appetite. He hurried the - - ing all the tests Ins broad knowledge t could suggest to prove what it really - f ' was. . f "v 'i v- ' ''v The tests confirmed his worst fears. , . The meat that had been sold him for jacob peterS) lhe forrner London veal had not come tailor who was the Cheka's ;Al ' Jdi' : vM f ther oodf aniinaf assistant chief executioner f - ''0 ' ' Although he could ,' ' . ' not be posi- tive, he was inclined to be- ' 'J had come from sBr young woman a woman of TBHgf ;fe &0 class who was Cik A well nourished ' . and knew how ; v . to preserve the d ture of her ' ' i1 skin. There V were many j te .' .. "i f things about T Bk " sM? the shape of j" J the cond.tion of it, V Madame Anastasia Suvorina f:kin and flesh which s!ZSiJmBBtSmy indicated that it was a woman's and not a man's mm .. ; From the firm I r...., . , condition of the flesh ! lTZ m , m . and the fact that (ne tne Soviet schools which Mme. its cells were not at I hk A, Suvorina found a "pitiful travesty all decomposed )r. j V , of educat:on Anisimoff inferred J Ww& r the limb had met lL " her death only a . 'v-'-'r. J,' .: . few hours before .f , v ; : . J &f the legvas thrown .' M -r into the icebox at 7 , . .t :t. f the market. Dr. Anisimoff was " " ' v, ovcrco ith dis- iUn Tntf rf 1 Us. Pnc sian people were living in an era of i cannibalism! L Wrapping a piece of the "veal" in a piece of oiled paper, he placed it in a I metal container and hurried with it to i the office of Comrade Dirujinskv, Chief of the Secret Police (the Cheka) of Petrograd. A guard explained that the 3 chief was busy, but that if the doctor t would wait a few minutes the Assistant , Chief, Comrade Peters, would see him. s Comrade Dirujinsky, the chief of the Cheka, by birth a Pole and by profes sion the editor of a red socialist weekly, was more a maniac and fiend of brutal power than any of the most reckless police dogs of the past regime ever were. Leonide Menshtchikoff employed him as a provocator agent in the past. The one great ambition of Dirujinsky Dirujin-sky was to terrorize the middle class, incite hatred among the moujiks and create suspicion everywhere by means of provcation, spying, threats and other methods of inquisition. His first step on becoming the head of the Cheka was r - " " to employ the Chinese kulis and Tartar troops as executioners of his institute, nomads, who could not even speak tho language and had no mercy for any one. The assistant of Dirujinsky, Comrade Peters, by birth a Lett and by profession profes-sion a tailor, was equally notorious in the Department of the Secret Service as was his chief. His great gift consisted in introducing the most brutal methods of torture for the political prisoners and thereby compelling them to confess, con-fess, and, in organizing provocation and spying among tho workingmen and their families He himself had been in former for-mer days a. provocator-spy of the Och-rana Och-rana and of terrorists. No one knew how he had been able to gain the powerful power-ful position of an inquisitional dictator in Petrograd. Dirujinsky and Peters were the two most reckless and feared tyrants during dur-ing the early day.-? of the revolution, and their institution, the Cheka, surpassed sur-passed the medieval torture chambers by far. Even Lenine and Trotzky w?re at one time not safe from its clu hce. But the man who finally brought about the downfall of the infernal power of the Cheka was my friend, Dr, Anisimoff, through his famous 'leg of veal." When the doctor's turn to see the busy assistant chief came he was ushered into a large room, where Comrade Com-rade Peters was seated behind a long tabje, covered with red cloth, receiving the reports of his hundreds of agents and giving instruction to others. The doctor reached to Peters his visiting card and began to open the package. Without looking at the card, the commissar com-missar gesticulated commandinly with his hand and grunted: "What the devil do jou want from me?" Unwrapping the piece of "veal," the doctor began : "Commissar, I want you to see this and explain to me." Peters cut him short, pounded with his fist on the table and shouted: "Shut up! I don't explain, I command. Now, what's the kick9" Dr. Anisimoff acted as if nothing had happened, and continued i "I have no kick, but I came to state that this 'veal.' which I purchased this morning from a butcher shop in the Sennoi market, at a mice of 1,000 rubles, is a piece of a human body." Comrade Peters grabbed the piece of "veal," looked at it, sme'.led it and cast it into the waste basket, shouting: "That's blackmail! I don't believe what you say! How the dVvil do you know what it is?" tin t l. r- . v o:u III IJJ1 , 1 IIIO 111V JJl Ol C'-.MOM , and can state as an authority that the piece of 'veal' which I gave you is a piece of human flesh. I want to ask you to summon the butcher here and let me know where he got his 'veal,' " spoke the doctor in a firm voice. The commissar pulled out of the basket bas-ket the parcel. to Turning to the doctor, he continued: "I will investigate the case carefully and will let you know. But remember one thing. If you came here to slander the Soviet regime and blackmail us your legs may be sold in the Sennoi Market, too, I ask you to keep the matter secret se-cret until I have made an investigation of the whole thing. Do you understand under-stand me?" Realizing that he was confronting an abnormal man in the most abnormal surroundings, the doctor bowed and left the office, I Instead of returning to his laboratory he walked to the Sennoi Market and entered the butcher shop at No. 3, where two Chinamen stood behind the counter preparing meat for the customers. cus-tomers. Stepping up to them, lhe doctor askec . them biuntly: "Tell me, where did you purchase the leg of veal which you sold to me this morning? Have you more of it left in the shop?" The butcher glanced at him indiffcr- I er.tlv and grunted : "That is not your business. I answer questions only to the police and get t my stuff from the police. You get out of here !" Indignant as the doctor was, he saw it was useless to try to 0 any further with his investigation and left. Back in his laboratory he repeated h 9 anal is of the "veal" and came to the same conclusion. Then he placed the c flesh in a hermetic container, wrote a j full scientific statement of the matter and affixed his affidait to it He called up Professor N., who occupied a semi- I ;w official position as a physician of the piison hospital, am! a.-ked hi co-opera- tion in the matter. The professor ex- J amined the "veal" and was indignant be- 1 yond words. But at that time the Cheka M vvus an institution against which no : W or.e dared to say a word, and so he de- M cided to pusue the matter quietly and in Id a roundabout way. Professor N kne.v slightly Comrade tsilenko, the warden of the Cheks prison, and decided to sec him peroon-ally. peroon-ally. As he had cured Comrade Vas-silenko Vas-silenko of a serious sickness a short While ago, he felt the warden might be frank to him He had as an excuse for his call the hygienic condition of the Cheka prison, which he had never seen ti and about which o much was com- ' (j nlninorl Wi "asilunko was a Ukrainian Cossack and had been an army undertaker. Now m he had charge of the prison and the d-.tli house of tiu Cheka. where he II acted as chief superintendent of cxe- locutions. lo-cutions. Comrade Vassilenko liked vodka, and Professor N. took a bottle with him in paying a visit to his office. The warden received the doctor politely, 3; and after emptying the bottle of vodka his tongue became more loose and his mind more alert and ho began to talk to Professor N. of his sealed chambers and the adjoining rooms. Professor N. l asked how many people were executed monthly. vL "Oh, we don't know. Wc keep only weekly record. Some wcoks we kill more, some weeks less, than a hundred counter revolutionists," commented the warden. "But what do you do with so many : corpses? How do you keep the place hygienic?" inquired the professor. "We have an excellent method for ! that," answered the warden, twisting proudly his long mustache. "Our institution in-stitution is as clean as a grand duke's garden. We are perfectly up to date. Wc beat the Americans in their methods meth-ods of execution." "I would like to see the place," said the professor. "I will show you. if you promise m to keep it secret. We are not permitted to admit anybody," explained the warden, war-den, and motioned the professor to follow fol-low him. The warden and the professor walked silently through many galleries until they emerged into a large, square room 1 with cement floor and bolted doors. Here stood a number of barrels ranged along the wall and from them came an odor of blood and fresh meat Walking Walk-ing un to one of them the professor inquired : . m (Continued on next page) (0 BerrJUvdtr Russia) I mHwnfrf rom preceding page, flit do you keep here? What is "Tpi grange odor?" IU -fC-rtticulating evasively, ns if to avoid IM rer- the wardcn replied : "0h, we use those for our criminals, A Mfo- rc cam oufl need coffins!" 'AU IbE curiously, half instinctively, the Jfcesor lifted the top from one of the and glanced into it. What he fciiockcd him beyond words barrel was half filled with what "cieiat first glance like pieces of fresh ut a ''lt'c lnPcr k revealed the cuts many human hands and iJk that looked as if they had been ffJjKtjptd off the bodies only a short lIlffHorrible'" gasped the professor, Imtffring back. Vlt's the way we pet rid cf our crim-nfci," crim-nfci," jmntcd the warden with a grim fBu his is something horrible!" p did not think you would be so 1 Liiaental about it Wc do all this j rle benefit of the people. Our ad- Z3 pistration has ou'k'rown all the fool-1 fool-1 I terial rites, prayers of the clergy .I I: snch nonsense. That all I t:r? to the Dark Aces fl'e do things here t imply 4 ml a a matte r of fact way Jmmmm ft: to us is an ai. . A fc lift is gone, why not treat iffcean animal? Our ad- I .viration want ennter-reolutionists and HHH h BUnan age, where nothing HB6 A t-X be wasted Y d'-y healthy . U cue bodies when there i- a r thr-M, : j Bia perfectly calmly, puff-J puff-J P kls cigar. 0 Uood heaven, how can you jL itlat?" gasped the profes- T quite simpl..-. As soon -iW l Prisoner is exr-cut.-.i hi- EW 713 brought here, cleaned, IB Professor beheld a room WM the one they had B , j H fitted out !,ke a I J""'1 shop, with hatchet-, Z-t!' ws, marble t aides I' running wr.ter. tn. ,. nse Chinese are the best 1 ws in the world for this Above, j I of work, although one " jo watch them, as thev Pitetl half the stutr. Only a few P ago they stole a whole barrel ot J bodies and it was only by acei-, acei-, ' 1 We located part of it." eon-1 eon-1 .j?the functionary. , r should you bother about that? r'' steal all thev want," com-Jq? com-Jq? other sneeringly. I ' Wc'l, we cannot tolerate that, g'trht sell the tuff to the restau- t',r': hwch' r -hop-- ar.d v.c might lt'' troubl" It v.a, r.l vest rday r. T Aniaimoft came to our office J 8.C0mrjlnmt that a 'lc,:r of vea1' t bt had Purchased in the Sennoi v-as the leg of a human body. " l1DC th8t hl"' Probably bought a part L "tenta of the stolen barrel. We - ii"? SUr"1 Uv tllal 80rt uf 1hln--" - the fun..ti...i,ary rravely. "EJ(.j.a paurMJ l'" " iid. n continued: fja, r,1 h,'n' ' "s,s us lot of V teJ'f e utl1'7'' '-'very one for the ,j 01 ho coir.mun.fv." .fi,What way'- gasped the visitor. ' tpl'ding the euntents to the nni-I nni-I the 200 aml t0 those in the re E .4-1 'i-.-v- -. . ' V - P J Russian children in Mo3cov being fed by the American Red Crois; and below, the late Czar and Czarina and their children "But it's so Toolish to keep those wild animals in the zoo and in the circus when there is no food for the populace," popu-lace," argued the professor. "But it costs nothing now to feed them since our institution supplies most of the 'meat.' The Zoological Garden and circus are useful institutions in these days to entertain the hungry mob. Yuu know what use Ca?sar made of thorn in ancient Rome. He ordered that the people should never be deprived of their bread or their circus." The warden began to explain to his visitor how the bodies were treated and packed, and how the wild animals preferred pre-ferred them to any other meats. While they were conversing guards and Chinese expressmen entered, took the packed barrels and loaded them on n truck outside. out-side. "They are carrying them to the zoo," explained the warden. "But did you catch the guards who stole the barrel of which you spoke before?" be-fore?" interrupted the professor. "We did, and the next day their bodies were fed to the animals. That had a good effect upon the others and now stealing has stopped." Although hardly able to control himself, him-self, the professor decided to find out more particularly about the institution. He began to inquire all about the method of executing criminals. "Executions are conducted by Chinese guards by shooting. An hour later the bodies of the criminals ane carefully cleaned and packed into the barrel, and in most cases are fed to the animals of the zoo the same night," told the functionary. Professor N. was curious about the executed and asked many questions. At first the warden tried to evade the issue, is-sue, explaining this was not his affair, but that of his chiefs. When he saw that the other was insistent he continued: con-tinued: 'a "Well, to tell the truth, most of them 1 are young folks bourgeoisie you know, I sons and daughters of the big people H under the old regime, but fools who j want to make trouble, incite riots and ' upset the people. As n rule, we do not I keep any records of them longer than j a week. Here are just a few SXamw ' (-',C'" " have had 7 to f;. v. Ith III ir 'li . ' ' 1 v7 week or ten days." 'y Saying this the warden brought from his desk the ,y list of the executed pris- oners and handed it over to . the visitor. Most of them were un- known to the professor, men and f women of eighteen to thirty years of age. Finally, as his eye ran up and down the list of ill-fated ones, he recognized a name and read the following statement: "Privcass Ludmilh Shahovtkaya Ago 17. Associated with the dymuty Arrested i General Buturlin't house June 16. Dangerous agent of counter-revolutionists. Stdte-mcnt Stdte-mcnt of Commissar Sverloff. Periston Pe-riston of the Department: Execution Execu-tion on Jvnc 20 and treated like the test. All record to be destroyrd. Dirujinsky" Having read this the face of the professor pro-fessor turned white like a sheet of pa ier Hardly able 10 control himself, he asked in a low voice "Was she the only woman executed during the last few days9" "I think so," nodded the warden. Did you know her"'" "No, but it seems to me she was a niece of Dr. Anisimoff," commented the professor and staggered out of the ghastly room, his head dizzy. Having thanked the warden lot his hospitality and bidden him good-night, the visitor entered the dark street and breathed like one who had waked up from a horrible dream. He looked back and saw the fat face of the warden standing at the half open rear gate of the building. It seemed as if the warden war-den was sorry for what he bad done sorry that the professor got out so eazlly. He slammed the gate with a clang and disappeared. Two days thereafter Professor N. called at the office of the warden of the Cheka and said he would like to see Comrade Vassilenko The guard shrugged his shoulders, gesticulated ominously and stammered- "Comrade Vassilenko is no longer warden and he is no longer here " "But where can I find him '" insisted the professor. "Oh, I don't know you may not find him anywhere He began to talk too much and they say he went mad He .ppcarod and that's the end of hirn," explained the guard, and hinted that the professor would better not ask too much. Professor N. heard later rumors that the Cheka authorities became suspicious of Comrade Vassilenko's loyalty and accused ac-cused him of selling dismembered bodies of the executed prisoners to the Chinese guards, who disposed of them in the markets. One night he was himself him-self executed and his body fed to the animals of the zoo. Shortly after this, apparently as a direct result of Dr. AtmimpfY's uncanny experience with the "leg of veal," the ' practice of feeding the bodies of the Cheka's victims to the animals in the zoo and circus was discontinued The Cheka's officials dared not risk having any more bits of human flesh tind their way into the markets of Petrograd. As in the French so in the Bolslp -ik Revolution, the leaders attacked the 'hurch by depriving the clergy of its income from the national treasury and by depriving the rich convents and monasteries of their vast possessions of lands, forests, mines and other riches. The only thing the Bolsheviki did not touch was the actual eeolsftiaatk property prop-erty contained within the premises of a monastery or u church. True, there were occasional lootings by bandits, or by some individual f unctionairts of the Soviet, but this was never practiced on a wholesale scale. Yet with all the methods employed by the Soviet to hurt the Church, it still standi as it stood before. The churches are packed With worshipper:-, and the priests are preaching religion with greater zeal than ever before. I went to Moscow for the particular purpose of witnessing the first official celebration of the Soviet government of the international proletnuat holy day in the holy Kremlin. I was a guest of an old priest of the ancient cathedral, who knew well my late father His apartment apart-ment was but a short distance from tin-apartment tin-apartment of Lenine and his offices The noise of the first of May celebration celebra-tion had quieted down and the atheistic-mob atheistic-mob va: wandering about the streets and trardens. siniriiicr revolutionary songs and ridiculing the churches or the holy dirines. But the churches were filled with wor-shippers, wor-shippers, ihc priests were reading the high mass and the choirs singing. It seemed so strange the anti-church crowds, outside; and inside, the anti-Soviet anti-Soviet worshippers. My attention was suddenly attracted bj a new excitement in the streets. I rushed to the window and saw a great procession of men, women and children carrying church banners and chanting hymns. I asked one of the priests what it meant, and he said: "A Red officer fell suddenly ill after insulting a sacred ikon in the proletariat proleta-riat procession: Thinking that he was u'ciing to die, he asked to be carried to the ikon which he had cursed. Upon seeing see-ing it. he fell on his knees and begged for forgiveness by condemning the Soviets. The priest came and put his hands on the head of the sick officer. t "For several minutes the penitent officer was silent except for his sobs. Then he rose and wiped sweat from his face, and smiled He said all his pain had gone and he felt perfectly well. He was cured by the miracle of the ikon, and now he is going to give Thanks for the miraculous cure in all the churches of the Kremlin. He declares he will make a vow to fight the Soviet and preach religion all his life. The crowd you see ympathizes with him and is curious to sec if the ikon will perform another miracle." m. a 1 Jgjp-"' I; a! sounded strange, , 'it The incident simply moved that communism H had merely scratched The same priest told me later: "Many is the time that a Bolshevik H commissar has called me to his side and said: I am an atheist. 1 believe in nothing your church tells me. But I .M believe there is something mystical and beyond my mental grasp, so you would better take me back into the Church.' H Then I have confessed him and he has emptied his soul to me to the very dregs and 1 have put him in Holy Communion, and left him all melted and While I was talking with the priest ! a young woman stepped out of the pass- UH ing crowd and asked him: H "Is marriage the same institution it - 1 l IH used to be, does it need the sanction of the church? Or is it as the Soviet !H people tell me, a simple aei ct ivristra- ''L tion with a commissar?" 1 "The church marriage still exists and j 11 will always exist," replied the priest, i Ll "for those who believe in the sanctity im of marriage. But for those for whom '! marriage is a pure business proposition nifl (he Church is superfluous. The Soviet mm registered marriage in my eyes is noth- I; AM ing more than legalized sin " ifl "You put it pretty strong," said the ' woman. "I married mj husband through 'lmm the Soviet registration, and we are happy I'mu and love each other just the same. W j j an get id of each other, when we dis- agree, which your Church does not per- mm "The church never prohibits anything. 1 It only sanctions or condemns " mm "My husband is u coiiii.u-.ir and docs not believe in the Church, but I do," H argued the woman. "He says the church H is only a talking institution of the old H stories, which we don't need. I don't care at all about that, but I think your mW ceremony and singing so beautiful, and an ikon simply thrills me. A prayer before an ikon relieves me from all my WW sorrows and anguish and my heart is mm so easy." 1 mm "My daughter, come back to the Church, and your husband will follow you," spoke the priest solemnly. H "Oh, I have quite converted him to be-licve be-licve that miracles exist, and that beautiful things are superior to useful things," went on the woman. "The. Soviet preaches to us that ugly beauty v called futurism, but I like the old beauty of my ancestors the beauty that heals, makes you happy and ele-vatcs; ele-vatcs; the beauty of the Church." The priest led the young woman into the church and lighted a candle before her favored ikon. She knelt in silent prayer before it, with tears in her eyes. Her husband, a young commissar, had evidently seen from a distance the goinfc-into goinfc-into the church of his wife, as he, too, soon entered. He stood for some mm-utes mm-utes silently by the side of his kneeling wife. Then he, too, fell on his knee and received the priest's blessing. The call of the Church had vanquished the doc-trine doc-trine of communism and won back the lost couple! A little later I saw them married with the solemn and beautiful ceremony which has been handed down for centuries in the Greek Church. (THE END |