The tragic procession

Reprinted here for the first time, this collection of bulletins—edited through the years by Alexander Berkman, Mark Mratchny, Milly Witcop-Rocker, Rudolf Rocker, et al.—chronicle the gradual slaughter of a whole generation of Russian anarchists and revolutionists. They also illustrate the astonishing effort of small groups of radicals who, living often in appalling conditions themselves, attempted to both highlight the vicious reality of the Bolshevik government and alert a wider public to the awful situation its prisoners found themselves in. Imprisoned, tortured, driven mad, and exiled to places so remote no contact with the outside world was possible, the prisoners disappeared into a totalitarian darkness. Each recorded name or initial printed here signifes a life that often had been spent in revolutionary commitment, a life systematically and carefully destroyed by erstwhile “comrades.” To remember them is the least we can do.