UNTOWARD EVENTS IN RUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 261, 31 July 1919, Page 4

UNTOWARD EVENTS IN RUSSIA

'Following on the reverses lately suffered by the forces under Admiral Kolchak and General DeniKEN, the latest news from Russia is anything but reassuring. The British A\ r ar Office is credited with the statement that the whole force based on Archangel will bo withdrawn as soon as the River Dwina rises, presumably in the autumn. No mention is made meantime of the Murmansk front, held by forces based on tho ice-free port on Kola Bay, but it seems not unlikely that the complete abandonment of North Russia is contemplated. Correspondents tell pitiful stories of the hosts of_ refugees in flight before the Bolshevik advance, but it is fairly evident that the, Allied withdrawal is enforced rather by the failuro of the local population to hold together than by the hardships of the campaign, severe as these are. The apparently complete and hopeless failure of the campaign in North Russia is hardly'an encouragement to the Allies to persist in their efforts to assist the forces which aim 'it restoring order and establifJiiri" democratic rule in Russia. The alternative, however, as the Daily Mail points out in forceful, though nerhaps somewhat exaggerated terms, is to leave Russia " to fall body and soul into the hands of the Huns, and to risk losing in the East the glorious victory that has been won in tho AVcst. Whatever the progress of German'penetration in Russia may be, it is qlear that Bolshevism is more than ever a danrcrous plague centre from which insidious attacks are developed upon what is weakest in the fabric of other nations. In suite of the present unpromisintr turn of events the Allies have a definite incentive to persevere in their measures of assistance to tho forces of order in Russia. Their essential aim is to assist tho Russian people to set up a Government of their own choosing, and while the Bolsheviki arc usurper? ruling by terror, Admiral Kolchak is solemnly pledged to hand over all his powers to a Constituent Assembly, elected on a basis of universal suffrage, as soon as it can be brought into existence. In the course of correspondence with the Allies which was published ln.extfinso in the British newspapers in June, lie stated that a commission was at work on direct preparations for the elections, and that Ins first thought when the Bolsheviki were definitely crushed would be to fix the date for tho elections. The definite character •■if this pledge was not brought outclearly m the cablegrams at the time. The reason may be that Kolchak refused to consider the alternative of summoning the original Constituent Assembly. He justified, this attitude on the ground ihat the Assembly of 1917 was elected under a regime of Bolshevik violence, ''and that most of its members were now in the So\&tist ranks. The outcome of the correspondence was that the Allies declared themselves "disposed to assist Admiral Kolchak and his associates with munitions, supplies, and food to establish themselves as the Government of all Russia." As events arc now moving ifc seems more than ever necessary to continue at least this measure of assistance to the forces directly opposing the Bolsheviki.