New Britain herald., 1922-03-08
SEEK TO PREVENT
 PEOPLE STARVING
Collections Being Taken Up
 Everywhere for Dying Prisoners

Moscow, March S.-The Associated
 Press)-To prevent the death by star
 vation and disease of 200, ,0OO or so
 men and women in the various prs-
 ons and concentration camps of Rus i%ia, collections are being taken in the
 churches by the priests and about the
 streets by cX-prisoners or by friends
 and relatives of prisoners.
 Despite the amnesty proclamation
 of the Soviet government in Novem- Der last, the prisons and camps con-
 tinue crowded with men and women political prisoners whose only crime appears to have been that they once were rich or that they fell afou of old enemies who used their Commun- istic influence to avenge private griev- ances
 From Bad To Worse. Conditions have been going from bad to worse since the famine until now prison means to be practically without food, clothes heat or medi- cine. The organization known as the Russian political Red Cross has had it's meager supplies and funds cut off, along with schools, hospitals and oth- CT institutions.
 The people in the famine region are in a paradise compared to those who are denied their liberty and all means of obtaining food. Eat Like Animals.
 In the camps of Novospaski and Pokrofsky. near Moscow, to the cer- tain knowledge of the Associated Press correspondent the prisoners are reduced to eating bits of refuse, like hungry animals. The best that is served them is greasy hot water called soup and pieces of black bread. The prison guards haven't much more to eat.
 Some women political prisoners have been released, but the corre- spondent has information that aged and middle-aged princesses, mothers and daughters and wives, are still detained in overcrowded, ce-infested cells or rooms with but one piece of clothing to cover them and without soap to wash themselves
 Once such people as these get into ! prison they stay there almost auto matically because they are of no spe- l cial political importance in present. | day Soviet Russia,
 Awful Plight
 The Chcka (secret police) authori- ties have just offered 10 send 40o real political prisoncrs-Socials Revolu- tionists or McnshcNik-to some small | town they may select at least 15o miles from railway ii they will | ,ipn tf tl,p, now locked up in the Boutirsky pris- on at Moscow and thus far have re- fused the offer. Nevertheless d doz- en or so of these prisoners have been released.
 Among the 400 is M. Tchernov, leader of the Mensheyiki party and chief of the Constitutional Assembly of January, 1918, This particular group worked for a time with Ad- miral IIolchak organizing the peoples party in Siberia.
 Menshevili were arrested by the hundreds in every political center of Russia and are still in various prisons.
 Other Prisoners.
 Other political prisoners are an- archists, the cadets of Professor NH iuhOli, loIl iNuHsi'''l Eoi'iSll minister officers and relatives from the various "White' and volunteer of the old lmperialist sets including men from the Deni- Nine and Wrangcl armies
 In addition, there have been scat cred through north and central Rus sian prisons and camps men connect d with the efforts to establish inde- pendent republics in Georgia, Azer paijan, the Kuban and other sections ,f south Russia and the Caucasus, in- 'luding Turk eStan.
 M. l'mschicht. the new chief of the sheka, has refused to give American Information on prlt- ms and the causes of the arrests. A ear ago the Cheka issued a report which was suppressed on issue ]