Gulag_ A History - Anne Applebaum [300]
Negotiations with the authorities continued. By May 27, the MVD commission delegated to deal with the strike had held its first meeting with the prisoners. Among what Solzhenitsyn calls the “golden-epaulted personages” on the commission were Sergei Yegorov, the deputy chief of the MVD; Ivan Dolgikh, then the commander of the Gulag system; and Vavilov, the deputy state prosecutor responsible for overseeing the Gulag. They were met by a gathering of 2,000 prisoners, led by Kuznetsov, who presented them with a list of demands.
By the time the strike was in full swing, these demands would include both the imposition of criminal charges on guards who had shot prisoners— which the prisoners had demanded from the beginning—as well as more clearly political demands. Among these were the reduction of all twentyfive-year sentences; the review of all political prisoners’ cases; the liquidation of the punishment cells and punishment barracks; more freedom for prisoners to communicate with relatives; the removal of the requirement of forced eternal exile for freed prisoners; easier living conditions for women prisoners; and a permanent reuniting of the men’s and women’s camps.
The prisoners also demanded a meeting with a member of the Communist Party Central Committee. They continued to make this demand until the very end, on the grounds that they could not trust either the Steplag authorities or the MVD to abide by any promises made. “And who could have inspired in you such hatred for the MVD?” the MVD deputy chief Yegorov reportedly asked them in response.
Had the strike taken place a few years earlier, there would, of course, have been no negotiations at all. But by 1954, the re-examination of politicals’ cases had in fact begun, albeit slowly. During the course of the strike, it even happened that individual prisoners were summoned to leave the camp in order to attend meetings of the tribunal re-investigating their cases. Knowing that many prisoners had already died, and apparently wanting a peaceful and rapid conclusion to events, Dolgikh almost immediately began to concede to some of the prisoners’ minor demands, calling for bars to be removed from barrack windows, for the establishment of an eight-hour workday, even for the transfer of certain particularly hated camp guards and officials out of Kengir. Under direct orders from Moscow, Dolgikh at first refrained from using force. He did try to break the prisoners’ resistance, however, actively urging them to leave the camp, and forbidding any new shipments of food or medicine.
As time went on, however, Moscow lost patience. In a telegram sent on June 15, Kruglov lashed out at his deputy, Yegorov, for filling his reports with pointless statistics—such as how many pigeons had been released from the camp carrying leaflets—and informed him that an echelon of troops, accompanied by five T-34 tanks, was on their way.
The last ten days of the strike were very tense indeed. The MVD commission issued stern warnings via the camp loudspeaker system. In response, the prisoners broadcast messages from their makeshift radio station, telling the world that they were starving to death. Kuznetsov made a speech, in which he spoke of the fate of his family, which had been destroyed by his arrest. “Many of us had also lost relatives, and listening to him we strengthened our resolve, deciding to stick it out until the end,” one prisoner remembered.
Just before dawn, at half past three on the morning of June 26, the MVD struck. The previous evening, Kruglov had telegrammed Yegorov, advising him to use “all possible resources,” and he complied: no less than 1,700 soldiers, ninety-eight dogs, and the five T-34 tanks surrounded the camp. At first, the soldiers sent flares soaring into the sky above the barracks, and fired blanks. Urgent warnings began to sound over the camp loudspeakers: “Soldiers are entering the camps. Prisoners who want to cooperate are asked to leave the camp quietly. Prisoners who resist