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N.M.

Russ. Oppositionists on Hunger Strike!

(1931)


From The Militant, Vol. IV No. 31 (Whole No. 90), 14 November 1931, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).



We give here a brief account of the brutal measures employed by the Stalinist bureaucrats and G.P.U. agents against the Left Opposition at Verchne-Uralsk where 130 Bolshevik-Leninists are held at an isolation camp. This savage treatment of the best revolutionists and Communists is meted out to the thousands of Left Oppositionists who are exiled and imprisoned in all parts of the Soviet Union.

The disappearance of Christian Rakovsky from Barnaoul, and whole present location is not known to this day, except to Stalin and his jailers, is arousing the indignation of revolutionists throughout the world. It is not known whether Rakovsky is alive or dead. This situation applies to others of the young and old Bolsheviks being persecuted by the Stalinist bureaucracy.

We demand a cessation of the persecution of the Left Opposition. The militant workers must insist upon a knowledge of Christian Rakovsky’s whereabouts. Stalin and his henchmen will not be permitted to ignore or forget their brutal actions, which include imprisonment, exile and murder of revolutionary Communists. Time will yet give a reckoning. – Ed.



MOSCOW. – At the isolation camp of Verchne-Uralsk, where 130 “Trotskyists” are kept, the repression was so severe that the prisoners answered by a hunger strike. This lasted eighteen days, after which the administration resorted to forcible feeding. The result was resistance, the use of brute force, shooting, with one comrade wounded, so far as we know. The treatment to which the prisoners are subjected is sufficiently described by the fact that thirty comrades are sick with scurvy.


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