Prior to the Russian revolution in 1917, Siberia was known to the world not so much for its spacious territory and its colossal wealth as for its prisons, Katorga.

Russians and foreigners wrote about Siberia, but these as well as others, in their books, mostly described the Siberian prisons and places of exile.

It was explained that in reality Siberia was Strana Katorzhan (The country of the exiled). Before the February Revolution in 1917, criminal and political prisoners were sent to Siberia. After the February Revolution all political prisoners were liberated. The prisons ceased to exist, and therefore Siberia ceased to be the "country of the exiled".

But later, after the bolsheviki strengthened their power, Siberia again became 2what it had been before the revolution--even more than before; prior to the revolution, besides criminals, there were also settlers, natives and various tradespeople in Siberia, but the bolsheviki converted all of Siberia into a penitentiary. The main contingent of exiles and prisoners was composed of peasants, and after them came the intelligentsia: professors, engineers, teachers, and clergymen. There are also a great number of workers. The peasants are placed in prisons to serve terms of from three to ten years for resisting collectivism; the intelligentsia, for disseminating propaganda against the Soviet Government; the workers--for strikes, revolts, disrespectfulness towards bolshevik officials. The population of the prisons in Siberia increased from day to day.

From the central districts of Russia and the allied republics there extends a ribbon of trains with prisoners and exiles. All of the transfer points for the prisoners of the Tzar's regime are very busily engaged in reinforcing their stations because of the many new prisons and concentration camps of the O.G.P.U. Organ Gosudarstvennogo Politseyskogo Upravlenia (Soviet Secret Police). The transfer points as well as the prisons are crowded, which condition viciously 3and rapidly breeds epidemics. It occasionally happens that while the prisoners are enroute, they will receive neither food nor water for a period of five days.

In the prisons and concentration camps, Trudovoy Rezhim (labor regulations) are introduced. The ration in the jails is as follows: 400 grams of black gluish, almost inedible bread with a weak soup of frozen potatoes. The treatment is very barbarous, cruel, and insulting to human dignity.

The officials of the jails and local police in the concentration camps are the highest law for the prisoners. There is no one to whom one may protest. Writing letters is forbidden. The prisoners in the jails develop a ferocious hatred of the soviet system. Among the prisoners there very often spreads a rumor that if a revolt should arise in Siberia, and the prisoners should be liberated, then hundreds of thousands of mature people, hardened enemies of the hated Soviet Governnent would fight with enthusiasm, rapture and violence, would enlist under the colors of the anti-bolshevik army.

The criminal fugitives, are treated far better by the authorities and officials of the prisons than are the political prisoners. For example: for attempting to escape, the political prisoners are condemned to death by the firing squad, but for the criminals, their terms of imprisonment are doubled.

In spite of such difference, the criminals are not supporters of Soviet Government and respect the political prisoners as fighters for the right cause. Many political prisoners receive help from the criminals, such as forged documents, weapons, and money, in order to escape.

The Soviet Administration stands for no ceremony with anyone who falls under the Zrenie, that is the scrutiny of the soviet or organs of secret service; although it many be only a minor case of suspicion, they will call him an enemy and will be ready to destroy the suspect, if not by direct killing under the guise of capital punishment, then by exile, which is equivalent to a lingering death.

All of this shows that the bolsheviki restored in Siberia, in the worst forms 5that which existed during the Tzar's regime.