Early on the morning of February 8, 1937, a large group of men appeared at the door of our quiet apartment in Ufa. We were shown a search warrant and warrants for our arrest. The search was carried out in violent, pogrom-like fashion and lasted all day. Books went pouring down from the shelves; letters and papers, out of boxes. They tapped the walls and, when they encountered hollow spots, removed the bricks. Everything was covered with dust and pieces of brick. . . .

At the prison everything was aimed at breaking prisoners’ spirits immediately, intimidating and stupefying them, making them feel that they were no longer human, but “enemies of the people,” against whom everything was permitted. All elementary human needs were disregarded (light, air, food, rest, medical care, warmth, toilet facilities). . . .

In the tiny, damp, cold, half-lit cell were a bunk and a half bunk. The bunk was for the prisoner under investigation and on the half bunk, their legs drawn up, the voluntary victims, the informers from among the common criminals, huddled together. Their duty was never to let their neighbor out of their sight, never to let the politicals communicate with one another . . . and above all to prevent the politicals from committing suicide. . . . The air was fouled by the huge wooden latrine bucket. . . .

The interrogation began on the very first night. . . . Using threats, endearments, promises and enigmatic hints, they tried to confuse, wear down, frighten, and break the will of each individual, who was kept totally isolated from his or her comrades. . . . Later stools were removed and the victim had to simply stand for hours on end. . . .

At first it seemed that the whole thing was a tremendous and terrible misunderstanding, that it was our duty to clear it up. . . . But it soon became apparent that what was involved was deliberate ill will and the most cynical possible approach to the truth. . . .

In the interrogation sessions, I now had several investigators in a row, and the “conveyor belt” questioning would go on for six days and nights on end. . . . Exhaustion reached the ultimate limit. The brain, inadequately supplied with blood, began to misfunction. . . . “Sign! We won’t bother you anymore. We’ll give you a quiet cell and a pillow and you can sleep. . . . ” That was how the investigator would try to bribe a person who was completely debilitated and stupefied from lack of sleep.

Each of us fought alone to keep an honest name and save the honor of our friends, although it would have been far easier to die than to endure this hell month after month. Nevertheless the accused remained strong in spirit and, apart from the unfortunate Mayorov, not one real revolutionary did they manage to break.

Source: Irina Kakhovskaya, “Our Fate,” in An End to Silence: Uncensored Opinion in the Soviet Union, translated by George Saunders and edited by Stephen Cohen (New York: Norton, 1982), 81–90. Copyright © 1982 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. This selection may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form of by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The work to which I was assigned . . . went by the imposing name of “land improvement.” We set out before dawn and marched in ranks of five for about three miles, to the accompaniment of shouts from the guards and bad language from the common criminals who were included in our party as a punishment for some misdeed or other. In time we reached a bleak, open field where our leader, another common criminal called Senka — a disgusting type who preyed on the other prisoners and made no bones about offering a pair of warm breeches in return for an hour’s “fun and games” — handed out picks and iron spades with which we attacked the frozen soil of Kolyma until one in the afternoon. I cannot remember, and perhaps I never knew, the rational purpose this “improvement” was supposed to serve. I only remember the ferocious wind, the forty-degree frost, the appalling weight of the pick, and the wild, irregular thumping of one’s heart. At one o’clock we were marched back for dinner. More stumbling in and out of snowdrifts, more shouts and threats from the guards whenever we fell out of line. Back in the camp we received our longed-for piece of bread and soup and were allowed half an hour in which to huddle around the stove in the hope of absorbing enough warmth to last us halfway back to the field. After we had toiled again with our picks and spades till late in the evening, Senka would come and survey what we had done and abuse us for not doing more. How could the assignment ever be completed if we spoiled women fulfilled only thirty percent of the norm? . . . Finally a night’s rest, full of nightmares, and the dreaded banging of a hammer on an iron rail which was the signal for a new day to begin.

Source: Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg, Journey into the Whirlwind (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1967), 366–67.

I started sending parcels to my mother. . . . I was thrilled if I managed to do it once a month. At first they accepted parcels in Moscow, but that soon ended because on those days [when parcels were accepted] the post office lines would be longer than those in the grocery stores. After that we had to go to Aleksandrov or Mozhaisk — that is about two hundred kilometers outside Moscow. . . .

They would only accept a limited number of parcels, so if you got there late, they might close the window before your turn came. . . . When the train arrived in Mozhaisk, there would be a terrible stampede. . . . Everyone would be running like crazy, pushing and shoving, trying to get ahead. In the beginning I was frightened, but then I got used to it.

The parcel had to weigh exactly eight kilos — no more no less. Imagine standing in that line and then having your parcel rejected because of an extra two hundred grams. . . . If it was too heavy, you had to open your box and take something out. In the meantime you might miss your turn; then you would try to push your way back through to the window, with the people in line acting like wild animals, growling and pouncing on one another. . . . If you finally had it accepted, you would walk back to the station in a state of utter bliss — as if you had just come out of a bathhouse after a good steam.

Source: Inna Shikheeva-Gaister, “A Family Chronicle,” in In the Shadow of Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women, from 1917 to the Second World War, edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 386–87.