Chapter 69 Chapter 9: Children with Submachine Guns

Soldiers in long coats with black cuffs guarded us.Red Army soldiers guarded us.The Self-Defense Forces guarded us.Veterans from the reserves also guarded us.In the end, strong-bodied children born during the First Five-Year Plan who had never seen war took up new submachine guns to guard us. There is only a silent, deathly bond between us and these children: any one of them could kill any one of us.Twice a day, morning and evening, for an hour each, we trudged along with them: every morning we slouched toward places neither we nor they needed to go, we walked in the middle of the road, they walked on both sides; Every evening, we got up our spirits and headed back. We ran to our own pens, and they also ran to their own pens.Neither side has a real home of their own, so these pens are also our home.

When we walk, we don't look at their short coats or their submachine guns at all. What use are those things to us?However, they kept staring at our black ranks.According to the regulations, they should always keep an eye on us. They accepted such an order, which is their duty.It is their duty to stop any unauthorized move and extra step by shooting at us. We wore thick black cotton coats and gray cotton hats made of "Stalin fur".The feet are crooked, unsightly, worn-out felt boots that have been worn three times and replaced four times, and there are pieces of number cloth sewn on the clothes.What do we look like to them?How can they treat us like real people?one

Our appearance is disgusting.Is this weird?No.The authorities are trying to make us look repulsive.Our group was escorted by armed soldiers in the middle of the wide street. The free residents of the village, especially the female teachers and students of primary and secondary schools, squinted at us from the sidewalk with fear in their eyes.It is said that they were afraid that we, the unfortunate remnants of fascism, would suddenly disperse and overwhelm the escort team.Run to the village to rob, rape, kill, and set fire to.A beast like that couldn't think of anything else.The guards are there to protect the villagers from us.How noble is the Guards1 In the village clubs we have built, the guards can be quite heroic when they invite their governesses to dance.

These kids are always watching us from the cordon, from the watchtower.but.People don't allow them to know anything about us.Give them only one right: to shoot us with submachine guns without warning! well!If they can come to our work shed in the evening, sit by the bed and listen to our conversation, and hear why this old man was locked in and why that uncle is, then, on those watchtowers, There will be no more people on those watchtowers.The submachine gun will no longer shoot. But here lies the whole power and cunning of the system: the mortal connection these people have with us is based on ignorance.If they showed sympathy for us, they would be punished as an act of treason to their country, and their very desire to talk to us amounted to a breach of a sacred oath.Well, why bother talking to us? Wouldn't the political instructors talk to them at the specified time? !Political instructors will tell them the political situation and spiritual outlook of these enemies of the people they guard.He will explain to them in detail and tirelessly how dangerous and harmful these ugly monsters are, and what a burden they are to the country (this will further induce them to try marksmanship with these living targets).Sometimes the political instructor would carry a large package of files under his arm, saying that it was a prisoner's file, and that the special department only lent him a night to read it.From it he would pull out a typed document and read the crimes listed there.Based on these crimes, using all the furnaces in the Auschwitz concentration camp will not relieve the hatred.Then he would say that the crimes were committed by the electrician who fixed the lamp on the pole, or the carpenter who had a cabinet built by some careless friend.

A political instructor does not contradict himself, nor does he slip up.He would never tell the kids that these people were locked up just because they believed in God, or because they pursued the truth, stood up for justice, and some for nothing at all. The whole strength of the system lies in this: here no one can talk casually to another, but only through the officers and political instructors. The whole strength of these children lies in their ignorance. And the whole strength of the camp lies in these children, in these soldiers with red epaulets, in the murderers in the watchtowers and in the people who hunt the escapees.

The following is a recollection of a training session of a political instructor by a security officer in Nero Brag at the time: "Lieutenant Samukin was a narrow-shouldered, slender man with a flat head like a snake. He was very white, almost I can't see that he has eyebrows. We know that he used to shoot people casually. Now he is giving us a political lesson. He said in the same tone: These enemies of the people you are guarding are fascists and villains !We embody the strength of the Fatherland and hold the sword of punishment. Therefore, we must be firm. There should be no tenderness, there should be no mercy!"

The children who had to kick the head of the fallen escapee, the children who kicked the bread out of the mouth of the handcuffed white-haired old man, the children who watched a handcuffed escapee die. The children who rolled around in the car full of wooden thorns, their faces were bleeding, and their heads were smashed, but they didn't move at all, grew up under this kind of education.Yes, they are the swords of punishment of the fatherland. After Stalin's death, I, a permanent exile, spent some days lying in the hospital of "free people" in Tashkent.Suddenly, I heard a young Uzbek man telling his fellow patients about his service in the army.Their troops, he said, "are responsible for guarding the executioners and the beasts".The Uzbek admitted that the guards couldn't get enough to eat, so they saw that the rations given to the prisoners working in the mines (of course, those who did 120 percent of the work) were no more sacred than those who performed the work. The rations of the guards are a little less, and they feel very uncomfortable.What annoyed him above all was that they, the guards, had to stand in the cold on the watchtower (yes, in long padded coats that dragged to the heels), while the enemies of the people seemed to be all over the place when they arrived at the construction site. He would spend all day by the fire (which they could see from the watchtower on their backs that was not the case), or just sleep there all day (it seemed that he really thought the country was being too lenient to these enemies).

It was an interesting opportunity to see the camp through the eyes of the guards!I asked this young Uzbek: What kind of villains are you guarding?Have you talked to them yourself?So, he told me that he heard all these words from his political instructor, who even read the prisoner's "files" to him in political class!It can be seen that his indiscriminate hatred and the fairy tale about the prisoners sleeping all day were of course only confirmed in his mind after the officer nodded and acknowledged. O people who deceived these children! ... You might as well not have been born into this world! ...

The Uzbek youth also said that the monthly salary of an ordinary soldier in the Ministry of Internal Affairs is 130 rubles, (that is, twelve times the salary of an ordinary soldier in the army! Why is the state so generous to them? It is because the positions held by these people are difficult Twelve times?) And 400 rubles for the soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the extreme north, and this is still an active soldier, that is, a person whose basic necessities are provided for by the state. The young man also told some other stories.For example, one of his comrades-in-arms was on the way to escort a group of prisoners to a certain place, and suddenly felt that a prisoner seemed to be trying to escape.So he pulled the trigger, and a shuttle of bullets flew out, killing five prisoners on the spot.Because all the guards later proved that the prisoners lined up and walked honestly, his comrade-in-arms was severely "punished": he was fined 15 days of confinement (of course in a warm confinement room) for these five lives!

Who among the inhabitants of the "Islands" does not know many things of this kind, and who cannot cite a few?How many times did it happen to us in ordinary labor camps!Some construction sites have not yet set up obstacle zones, only security personnel guarding around, forming an invisible cordon.Suddenly, a shot is fired and a criminal is killed: he is said to have "crossed the line".In fact, perhaps not crossed at all, because the line is invisible.However, no second person will come to check whether the deceased's feet have crossed.Probably always crossed, because that's what the guards said, and they were the only ones looking at the line, the prisoners were just working!It is the people who work hard in the field without paying attention to the boundaries who will eat this bullet!On one occasion, while in Ozerlag, the prisoners were mowing grass near the Novo Djumka railway station.A prisoner sees some grass left two or three steps away, and the thrifty farmer's master mood does not allow him to throw away this handful of grass: take two steps and put it in the haystack - a bullet flies!Instead, the soldier who fired the shot got a month's reward vacation!

It's also happened that a guard hates a prisoner (because the prisoner didn't do something for him), and he will find an opportunity to get back with a shot.Sometimes it was pure mischief: a guard ordered a prisoner to fetch something beyond the line, and the prisoner believed it was true, only to be shot dead as soon as he crossed the line.Or throw out a cigarette, "Hey, pick it up and smoke it!" The prisoner will pick up the cigarette, he is such a cheap thing. Why shoot?Often inexplicable.For example, one day, during the day, at the heavily fortified Camp Kengil, there was no sign of any escape at all.A West Ukrainian girl named Lida washed a pair of socks during her work break and took them to dry on the slope at the front of the obstacle zone.At this time, the guard on the watchtower immediately raised his gun to his shoulder and killed her with one shot. (I heard later that the guard seemed to have tried to commit suicide.) Why?A man with a gun!One man has unlimited power to kill or not to kill another man! And here it is profitable!The chief will always protect you.Never punish you for killing a prisoner.Instead, encourage you and reward you!The sooner you shoot, the prisoner will be brought down as soon as he takes half a step, which shows that you are more vigilant!So the reward is higher.One month's salary back!Give a month off! (Yeah, the leader of the Hong Kong Security Force put himself in his shoes, if his battalion didn’t have such a record of high vigilance, what kind of battalion is this?! What kind of leader is he?! Or it’s here Prisoners are very honest? Wouldn’t it be possible to reduce the number of guards?! Once established, this kind of security system itself requires constant deaths!) Even among the shooters in the Guards Corps a certain rivalry developed: you killed one, got a prize, bought butter.Then can't I also kill one and receive the prize to buy butter?Do you want to go back to your hometown to visit your beloved girl?Just shoot one of these gray animals and you'll get a month's vacation to go back. We learned about this situation early on in the ordinary labor camps.Unexpectedly, there were some innovations in the special labor camp: shooting directly at the team like this Uzbek friend did, like what happened on September 8, 1952 on the watchtower of the Ozer Camp, or from Wang Wangtao fired directly at the camp. Yeah, that's how they were raised.This is the fruit of the work of the political instructors. In May 1953, children with submachine guns in the Kenzier camp suddenly and for no reason fired a stream of bullets at the line of prisoners who had returned to the camp gate and were waiting to be searched before entering the camp.Sixteen people were injured on the spot, but it would be fine if they were injured alone!The children used explosive bullets ("bombers") long banned by all capitalist and socialist conventions: as the bullet exited the body it created a funnel-shaped hole, the internal organs were blasted, the mandible and Limb bones were blasted to pieces. Why is it necessary to equip the security forces of special labor camps with explosive bullets?Who approved this?These we will never know... However, the people of the guard saw that the nickname given to them and their guards by the prisoners in my novel was "parrot", and now that this term has become accepted by society, they can't help but be very angry.No!Prisoners should love the guards and guards and call them guardian angels! One of the children was also not angry. (Yes, he was one of the good ones.) He was determined to stand up for the truth.His name was Vladilian Zadorny. He was born in 1933. From the age of eighteen to his twenty, he served in the military security force of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and has been serving as a guard in Nero Brag.He wrote me several letters, saying: "These young men did not serve in the Guards themselves. They were called up by the Military Service, which sent them to the Ministry of the Interior. They were trained in shooting and sentinels. They were exposed to the cold, at night. Weeping secretly: to hell with Nero Brag and all that is in it! They don't need these things! So don't blame the young men! They are soldiers, they are serving their country; although in their Not everything in the absurd and terrible service is intelligible (may I ask, is there some incomprehensible? Either all intelligible or not at all!--author's note), but they swore, Their duties are not easy either." His words are sincere and reasonable.Thought provoking.He seemed to erect some wooden stakes to protect the children.These stakes are: Pledge, Serve Your Country, They Are Soldiers! But that should also be said: the general foundation of being a human being is too weak in them, and it can even be said that there is no such foundation at all, because it does not even have the power to resist oaths and political lessons.Not from any generation, nor from any nation, can produce such children. Should one trust others more than one's own conscience when carrying out orders?Isn't this the main problem of the twentieth century?Can a person not have his own concept of right and wrong, good and evil, but only take the good and evil, right and wrong in printed orders or verbal instructions of the chief as the standard?oath!The oath is an incantation solemnly proclaimed in a trembling voice, and its meaning is to protect the people from the wicked; but how easily it can be used for the wicked's service against the people! Let us recall what Vasily Ferasov planned to say to his executioner as early as 1937: You alone are guilty!People are killing people and it's only your fault!You alone are responsible for my death, remember this sentence for the rest of your life and live on!If there were no executioners like you in the world, there would be no death penalty! If there were no guards, there would be no labor camps! Of course, neither contemporary people nor history can fail to see that there is a hierarchy of guilt.Of course, everyone understands that the officers of the soldiers are more to blame; . However, it was not they who were shooting, guarding, and pointing at us with submachine guns, but these children!After all, it was these children who kicked the prisoners who fell on the ground with their leather boots! ... Vladimir also wrote in the letter: "People have instilled in our minds and forced us to recite the 1943 regulations with the word CC, that is, the top-secret security force regulations formulated in 1943. The regulations of this regulation are very strict and terrible. What's more, we are The oath was sworn. There were also surveillance by operatives and political coordinators, as well as small reports and whistleblowers. Every shooter also had a personal file... People in black cotton and military uniforms separated by walls and barbed wire The people in the coat are also imprisoned, but the former was imprisoned for 25 years, and the latter was imprisoned for three years." He spoke these words with seeming force, and he said that the marksmen of the guards were also imprisoned there, but not by the court-martial, but by the conscription bureau.But, no, not all "the same", because a guy in a military overcoat can shoot "very well" with a submachine gun at a guy in a black padded jacket, or even a crowd of them.We'll see that shortly. This Vladilian also explained: "There are all kinds of people among young people. Of course, there are narrow-minded, ignorant people. People who blindly hate prisoners, people who are dead serious. By the way, those who are particularly hardworking in this regard are those recruits from ethnic minorities-- - Bashkirs, Buryats, Yakuts. But most of the soldiers are indifferent people. They just obey silently, carry out their tasks, they like to tear the moon cards most, hope The best is when the postman delivers the mail. Finally, there are some good boys who sympathize with the prisoners and consider them unfortunate people. And most of us know that our office is not popular among the people , so they generally don’t wear uniforms when they go home for vacation.” Vladilian also used his own experience to illustrate his ideas.It's where he's been most successful, though there are arguably a handful of people like him. In fact, the reason why Vladilian was assigned to the guards was due to the negligence of the lazy special department.His stepfather, Voinino, was an old cadre who had worked in trade unions for many years and was arrested in 1937.His mother was expelled from the party for this.His biological father was at that time a brigade commander under the All-Russian Cheka and a member of the party in 1917. At this time, he hastily announced that he had completely severed ties with his ex-wife and son (so he managed to barely keep the party vote, but Still lost the rank of general in the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs).Vladilian's mother voluntarily became a blood donor at the blood station during the war in order to wash away her stains; (it doesn't matter, her blood can be transfused whether she is a party member or a non-party member!) Vladilian himself "from childhood I hated the soldiers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs who wore blue piping hats, but now this blue piping hat is worn on my head... The scene of that terrible night was deeply imprinted on my young heart-some clothes and father The scene of people in the same uniform throwing rough on my little bed." He also said in the letter: "I'm not a good guard soldier: I talk to the prisoners and I do errands for them. I sometimes leave my gun by their firepit and go to the commissary for them or put their letters in the mailbox. I think, In the independent labor camps, in Promezhu Tochinaya, Mesa Colt, Parma, etc., people will definitely remember me as a guard, Vladilian. The head of the prisoner's work team once said to me ;Please pay attention to observe people and listen to their difficulties, then you will understand... And I always treat these political prisoners as my grandfather, uncle and aunt... I really hate those officers. I Grumbling, angry, I said to the shooters: they are the real enemies of the people! Because of these things, because of my disobedience ("sabotage"), because I spoke to the prisoners, they started to censor me... ... that tall slender Lieutenant Samukin ... hit me in the mouth with a stone blotter for my refusal to sign a statement about the prisoner's letters. I'm a second-rate boxer, I Can play with a 30-kilogram dumbbell! If this skinny monkey met me in the boxing ring, hum!... But at that time, two guards held down my arms... However, at this time, the person reviewing me had already taken care of me. I can't help it: that was the time in 1953 when serious intrigues and rivalries broke out within the Ministry of the Interior. In the end, I was not sentenced to a sentence, but I was issued a black card that could not find a job-- It states that I was dismissed under Article 47-d: dismissed from the Ministry of Internal Affairs for extreme indiscipline and gross violation of Ministry of Internal Affairs regulations. Thus, I was frozen and After being severely beaten, I was thrown on the way home... Thanks to Arsen, a released work team leader, who took care of me along the way." Let us imagine this: what would happen to an officer in the guard if he wanted to show a little tolerance to the prisoners?He can do this only in front of or through soldiers, that is, when everyone else is hostile.This is naturally impossible, and he himself will feel "embarrassed".What's more, even if he did this, someone would immediately inform him. That's the way the system works!