The Soviet Government has recently produced a film of the
Solovetsky island prison in the White Sea, representing it as a somewhat luxurious health resort. What this horrible place really is may be learned from the account of Mr. Boris Cederholm, a Finnish subject, entitled In the Clutches of the Tcheka (Allen and Unwin, 15s.). He was arrested apparently because the South American country, a firm in which he represented at Petrograd, declined to have any dealings 'with the Bolsheviks. The nominal charge of dealing in contraband was apparently wholly unfounded. Mr. Ceder- holm was kept in various prisons for two years and then, after his Consulate had been told that he could leave the country, was sent to Solovetsky. It is difficult to imagine how even a Communist would justify the barbarous cruelty with which some eight thousand ,,educated and respectable people are being treated in this Arctic prison. Mr. Cederholm's graphic description should be widely read.
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