The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1923-02-20
MILLIONS HAVE BEEN
PUT TODEATH BY CHEKA
VICTIMS OF BOLSHEVIK RE-
CINE DENIED RIGHT OF A
TRIAL OR OF CLERGY.
AN OFFICIAL TORTURE ROOM

p,oodv Executioners Carry on Their
Work Underground at Night. Sew
erteen- Year-Old Girl Has Put -Four
Hundred to Death.
During the bolshevist reign of ter
cor carried on openly and without
oba+ement in Russia from 1917 until
1921 and still going on under cover,
h,rdreds of thousands of persons
,vare executed as counter-rev olutlon-
;.+s One statement of the exact num-
her Of deaths, coming from Riga as
official soviet figures, places the death
lief at 1,766,11S The famous Russian
cbeka, the all-powet full secret body
which rules Russia with bloody
hand. is said to nave directed all ar
rests and executions.
Moscow, the present seat OF gov
eminent of the bolshevist rule, is the
cen4e, of activities of the cheka, the
members of which are unknown to
the majority of their victims. The
street of Bolshaia Lubianka, in Mos
cow has been turned into one con-
ti3uous prison, and here the govern
m,nt prisoners are confined and exc
cuted. unusually without trial and
without an opportunity to answer the
accusations made against them.
EvacIIfiOnc
Bolshaia Lubianka is street hated
not only in Moscow, but throughout
Russia, for there is little hope for any
one who is ever taken there. The ram
bling buildings once used as peaceful
insurance offices, become particularly
1oathsome at night, when the bloody
eyecutioners carry on their deadly
work in the cellars far underground.
Executions are virtually always by
shooting. although one of two official
executioners have been known to
strangle their victims to death, while
in A few instances the official killers,
crazed by their bloody work, have
used knives and axes to dispatch their
victims. Dora Evlinsky, l7-year-old
bo1shevist girl executioner, is said to
have killed 400 officers with her own
hands.
Bodies Spirited Away.
What becomes of the bodies of the
hundreds of thousands of victims OF
the cheka is known only to this body
itself. When relatives or friends OF
persons arrested by the bolshevlsts
seek to find them stone wall is en-
countered. They are sent from one
prison to another, and from one OH
Ger to another, with always the same
answer-the person sought has been
transferred to this or that prison. or
has gone to the city"
Sometimes, if the questioners be-
come too insistent, they are told that
the loved one who is sought died OF
spotted typhus on the way to Yeka-
terinburg." This stock phrase has be-
come a by-word in Moscow and is
now accepted as a statement that an
other execution has been added to the
long roll. Seldom if ever are the rel
atives given the victims body tor
burial or even told in what cemetery
the body has been buried.
Robbed Before Death.
Prisoners facing the death chamber
were usually robbed of all their cloth
ing and valuables before they were
shot down by the firing squad. The
prisoners would be called out, one by
one, stripped of all their clothes and
then killed. The clothes later would
be either sold or used by the guards,
and it was no uncommon sight to see
bOlshevist executioner or guard
wearing clothes worn but few hours
before by some prisoner
The inmates of the all-Russian
cheka prison represent motley va
rety OF elements. There are social
ist revolutionists and bandits. Titled,
iliustrious nobility rubs elbows with
ordinary workingmen arrested as strlk-
ers. Former leading capitalists OF MOS
COW sleep side by side with humble
peasants, and lawyers with a talent
Tor promotions and combinations OF
dubious schemes share their cells with
cheka judges and investigators caught
IN "double-crossing" their associates
No Trials Held.
Although the death penalty was os-
tcnsibly abolished early in 1920, the
executions are carried ON almost
nightly in the grewsome cellars OF the
Bolshaia Lubianka. The accused are
seized by cheka agents after the So,
Wet spies have secured real or alleged
evidence of crimes against the gov
eminent The prisoners are hurried to
the cheka prison, where they are plac,,
ed in dark, damp cells far underground
and deprived of the opportunity, OF
even notifying relatives OF their
Whereabouts
The cheka commissioners pass on
their cases, denying them the right OF
trial, although the prisoners them
selves are usually questioned at some
length, this questioning assuming a
third degree process closely resem-
bling the famous Spanish inquisition
methods. They are brow-beaten by
cneka investigators, often subjected 10 .
physical torture and indignities. and
then turned over to the waiting exc
cutoner.
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