What really happened in Room 101?

You asked me once, what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.

George Orwell, 1984

A decoration sold in the UK.

Of course, the book of Orwell is a work of fiction, but everyone understands that Ministry of Love is nothing else than NKVD, and that room 101 is somewhere in its cellars. Goldstein is, of course, Trotsky. The book of Goldstein is allover in Orwell’s novel. The real life Goldstein wrote books as well. The one about Big Brother is titled “Stalin.” Recently I read this book of Goldstein and learned what really happened in Room 101. I would like to share this forbidden knowledge with you. Here is the relevant passage (in my translation):

Among the young revolutionaries of the Tsar epoch there was a certain percentage of those who did not show sufficient courage during interrogations. Depending on their further conduct, the Party either expelled them forever or accepted back into its ranks. In 1923, Stalin as the Secretary General collected all the documents in his hands. They became the best weapon against hundreds of old revolutionaries. Using threats of exposure and expelling from Party, Stalin gained their slave obedience and step by step lead them to complete demoralization.

So this is what was in Room 101. No rats really.

Unfortunately, Trotsky does not give names and does not say how exactly the revolutionaries showed their lack of courage. However, recently an attempt at colored revolution happened in Russia. One of its leaders was Boris Nemtsov. In Yeltsin epoch, he was a Deputy Prime Minister. A very interesting story about him is hidden in the archives of Russian TV. In a debate broadcasted by the main Russian TV channel, the Leader of Liberal-Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky told the following story. He mentioned personal conversation with Belarus' president Lukashenko as the source. Once Nemtsov came to Belarus to stir up trouble. The police arrested him, put into a car and drove into the woods as if for execution. During this scary ride, Nemtsov had defecated in his pants. After this happened, the police drove him to the airport and deported from country. We can only guess whether similar things happened with the revolutionaries of the Tsar epoch in the hands of oprichniks.

Stalin's file from the police archives (1912).

Now let us see what Goldstein says about Big Brother. Here are two quotes (my translation; Koba was another pseudonym used by Stalin)

Vereshchak tells how in 1909 (apparently in 1908), on the first day of Easter, a company of the Salyan regiment beat all political prisoners, by making them to run gauntlet. "Koba went under the blows of rifle butts without bowing his head and holding a book in his hands. And when a spontaneous rebellion started, Koba smashed the door of his cell with a night stool, despite the threat of bayonets."

In the midst of the prisoners there were people who yesterday or today have been sentenced to death, and every hour were waiting for their fate. The condemned ate and slept together with the others. At night before the eyes of the prisoners they were taken and hanged in the prison yard, so that in the cells were "heard the screams and moans of the executed." All prisoners were shaking in nervous fever. "Koba was fast asleep - said Vereshchak - or calmly studied Esperanto (he believed that Esperanto - is the future language of the International)."

A very different behavior from what the moral giants who fell victims to Stalin’s repressions had shown.

Mikhail Simkin

October 1, 2012