Resistance in the Gulag Archipelago (1918-1956) Page 4

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  SELF-IMMOLATION

  In 1923, in Vyatka Prison, the (a) Socialist Revolutionary and his comrades barricaded themselves in a cell, poured gasoline over all the mattresses and incinerated themselves. 11 How many were there? Who were they? What were they protesting against? Such an act would have provoked uproar prior to the Revolution. Yet, this time around no one knew of the occurrence-not neither in Moscow— nor in history. And. As Solzhenitsyn observes, “and yet the human flesh cracked in the flames in exactly the same way.”