October 9 1924
Marooned in Ice: Hundreds in Soviet Camp of Frozen Death
A great tragedy is taking place in the White Sea. In the famous Solovetsky Monastery, built upon islands there, remote from Archangel, hundreds of prisoners of the Bolsheviks are perishing.
It was this monastery which Mr Lancelot Lawton, in his recent series of articles on Russia, said was called “The Camp of Death”.
Russian organisations of Socialists and workers send a pathetic SOS on behalf of these prisoners in the frozen North.
It is stated that more than 400 intellectuals have for a long while been under arrest in the monastery, as a consequence of the procedure known as “administrative order”, which enables the Soviet to deprive anyone of his liberty without resort to formal trial.
The plight of these poor people is appalling. They are ill-treated, badly fed, and completely cut off from all the world.
From September 25 they began a hunger strike – their object being to compel the Bolsheviks to transfer them to the mainland.
The terrible Artic winter is at hand. From October 1 all steamers ceased running to the island. It is feared that the prisoners will not be able to endure another winter, and in this region the winter lasts nearly eight months.
Last winter there was a “clash” in the camp and six men and two women were shot dead.
By the end of October the island will be completely frozen in: and during winter no human being approaches it. It is completely isolated.
The Russian writers and Socialists make an urgent appeal for something to be done for these people “before it is too late”.
The Solovetsky Monastery’s use as a prison camp was an early example of the Gulag system used by the Soviet Union for much of its history.
**
Downfall of the first Labour Government
The Press Association says the Prime Minister [Ramsay MacDonald] will take the first opportunity of seeing the King, probably this morning, and will ask for a dissolution of Parliament. This is almost certain to be granted, and an announcement to that effect may be expected when the House reassembles this afternoon.
The dissolution will not take effect until the Irish Boundary Bill has been passed into law, and the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill has been passed through all its stages.
