In compliance with Article 27 of the Code ott Convict.r, prison surveillance in Sakhalin is maintained "by senior and junior guards, based on one senior guard for each 40 per- sons and I junior guard for each 20 prisoners, these being appointed yearly by the Main Prison Administration." There arc in fact 3 guards, I senior and 2 juniors, for 40 persons, that is, 1 to 13. If you imagine 13 men working, eating and passing their time in prison under the constant supervision of one conscientious and experienced man, and that over him in turn there is a superior officer in the per- son of the warden, and over the warden there is the district commandant, and so on, then you can rest content with the thought that everything is wonderfully under control. But in fact supervision is the worst aspect of the penal system in Sakhalin.
At present there arc some i 50 senior guards on Sakha- lin and twice as many junior guards. The senior guards are literate noncommissioned officers and privates who com- pleted their terms of service in local regiments, and in- cluded among them arc a few intellectuals who do not belong to the privileged classes. Lower ranks in service constitute 6 percent of the total number of senior guards, but the functions of these junior guards is almost exclu- sively carried out by privates who have been detached from local regiments. \'\'hen there is not a full complement of guards, the Code permits appointments from the lower ranks of the local regiments to perform guard duty. Thus young Siberians regarded as being incapable of convoy duty arc ordered to perform guard duty. This is a "temporary measure" and "within the limits of dire necessity," but this "temporary measure' has been dragging on for dozens of years and "the limits of dire necessity" are constantly ex- panding so that the lower ranks of the local military de- tachments already comprise 73 percent of the junior guards and nobody can guarantee that within two to three years this figure will not grow to ioo percent.7
There are many guards in prison but there is no order, and the guards are a constant drag on the administration, as the island commandant himself has said. He penalizes them nearly every day in his daily orders, decreases their salary or discharges them. He will discharge one for un- reliability and nonperformance of duties, a second for im- morality, unlawful behavior and stupidity, a third for stealing government supplies entrusted to him, a fourth for hiding them. A fifth, who was assigned w a barge, nm only did not keep the prisoners in order but set them a bad example by stealing Greek nuts; a sixth is under judicial examination for selling governmcnt oxen and nails; a sevemh has more than once been observed in the illegal use of forage for the govcrnmcnt caulc; an eighth for repre- hensible behavior toward convicts.
We learn from the daily orders that one senior guard from the ranks who was on duty in the prison tok the libcny of entcring the women's barracks through the win- dow after bending back the bars, the aim being a romamic alliance. Another guard on night duty allowed a private, also a guard, to cmcr the quaners where unmarried women prisoners were being held.
The guards' amorous adventures arc not only limited to thc cramped area of the women's barracks and their private quartcrs. I found adolesccnt girls in thc guards' quaners, and when I asked them who they were, they said, "I am a cohabitam." You cmer the quartcrs occupied by a guard, and you find a man who is thick-set, well-fed and fleshy, his waistcoat unbuuoned and wearing squeaky new boots; he is siuing at a table and drinking tea. A pale fourteen- year-old girl with a weary face sits at the window. He usually calls himself a noncommissioned officer, a senior guard, and says that the girl is the daughter of one of the convicts, that she is sixteen years old, and is his cohabitant.
While on duty at the prison the guards permit the prisoners to play cards and they join in themselves. In the daily orders we hear of violent behavior, insubordination, extremely impertinent behavior toward superiors in the presence of convicts, and we also hear of prisoners being beaten over the head with canes, which cause head wounds.
These guards are callous and backward; they are drunk- ards and play cards with the convicts, eagerly accept love and liquor from the female convicts, are undisciplined and unscrupulous and thus can exert only a negative type of authority. The exile population does not respect them and acts with contemptuous indifferencc toward them. They call them mkhamiki [dried biscuits] to their faces and address them with the familiar second pcrson singular. The ad- ministration does nothing to raise their prestige, probably becausc it feels that such attempts would bc useless. The officials addrcss the guards familiarly and revile them in from of thc convicts. In this way we often hear: "What are you looking at, you idiot?" or "You don't undcrstand any- thing, you blockhead!" How little the guards are respectcd is dcmonstratcd by the fact that many arc assigned "tasks which do not conform with thcir status," mcaning that thcy act as flunkeys and errand boys for the officials. As though ashamcd of their duties, thc guards belonging to the privi- legcd class attcmpt to distinguish thcmselvcs from the rest, and so you find one wearing widcr braid on his shoulders, another wears an officer's cockade, and a third, the college registrar, does not rcfcr to himself as a guard in official documents, but as a "dircctor of labor and laborers."
Sincc thc Sakhalin guards never had any idea of the meaning of surveillance, it followed inevitably that the very purposes of surveillance degenerated slowly, over a period of time, to thcir present low status. Surveillance deterio- rated to such a degree that all the guard does now is to sit in a ward, see that "thcy don't raise a hullabaloo," and complain to the authorities. \'V'hile on duty he i/ armed with a revolver, which he fortunately does not know how to use, and a sabre, which he has difficulty in drawing from its rusty sheath. He hovers around, watches them at their work without participating in it, smokes and feels bored. In the prison he is merely a servant who opens and closes doors, and when the prisoners are out on a job he is super- fluous.
Ahhough 3 guards are supposed to be assigned to every 40 prisoners, 1 senior and 2 junior guards, ncvenheless you always encoumcr 40 to 50 men working under the super- vision of one guard, or with no guard at all. If 1 of the 3 guards is out at work, the second stands at the governmem store and salutes passing officials, and the third languishes in somebody"s vestibule or, ahhough it is not required of him, he stands at auemion in the infirmary waiting room.H
Very Jittle can be said about the imdlcctuals. To have to punish your fellowmen because you are under oath and in duty bound to do so, constantly violating your feelings of repugnance and horror, knowing that you are far away from anywhere, ill-paid and bored, in cominual proximity with shaved heads, chains, executioners, bribes, fights, and with the knowledge of your complete helplessness to com- bat the encompassing evil—all these things make service in the penal administration exceptionally difficult and for- bidding. There was a time when these civil scrvams were slovenly, ncgligem and slothful, and it made no difference to them where they served so long as they could cat, drink, sleep and play cards. Then, of necessif, respectable people were employed, but they left their posts at the first oppor- tunity or else they became confirmed drunkards, or went insane, or committcd suicide. Slowly they were engulfed in the poisonous atmosphere, as by an eight-armed octopus, and they, too, began stealing and beating prisoners savagely.
If we are to judge by official repons and correspond- ence, the Sakhalin imclligentsia in the '6os and '70S was distinguished by its nihilism. Under the officials then in charge the prisons became nests of corruption and gam- bling dens. Debauched, hardened and unrepentant peo- ple were sometimes beaten to death. The most extraordi- nary administrator was a certain Major Nikolayev, who was the warden of the Due prison for seven years. His name is often mentioned in the correspondence.,J He had been a serf recruit. There is no information concerning those abilities which smoothed the road for this gross, uncouth man, and so enabled him to attain the rank of major. When one correspondent asked him if he had ever visited the interior of the island and what he saw there, the major answered, "A mountain and a valley—a valley and again a mountain; obviously the soil is volcanic, and it erupts." When asked to describe something called ramson, he an- swered, "First of all, it is not a thing, it is a plant, and secondly, it is most beneficial and tasty; it is true it pro- duces wind in the bclly, but we don't care a rap about that; after all, wc don't go into the company of ladies."