BOLSHEVIK "GRANDES DAMES"

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 265, 5 August 1919, Page 8

BOLSHEVIK "GRANDES DAMES"

ANTICS OF THE NEW ORDER

BARE LEGS AND FINERY

A Copenhagen correspondent of the Exchange Telegraph Company writes:— Newspapers representing the Advanced Communists (a party which is in passive revolt against the Soviet bureaucracy) make savago attacks against alleged Bolshevik aristocrats, mostly women, whose display and arrogance have disgusted the minority of veal democrats ;n the Bolshevik 'ranks. Moscow and other large cities of Central Russia are thronged with wives, sistej'3, and sweethearts of tho S'oviet officials, mostly ignorant, and in 110 way prepossessing; women who have acquired furs, jewels, and automobiles as a result of plunder or through the influence of their male protectors. These ladies make great pretentions to. smartness, but, together with pearls and emeralds, they often wear patched boots, and go without stockings, which even the all-powerful Soviet bosses cannot easily obtain. The official "Pravdn" admits that there is some truth in these charges: "It is becoming increasingly evident that a certain clas9 of our now officialdom, and particularly our young women officials, no longer show democratic moderation jn their way of life. It is highly desirablo that a stop be put to the extravagances of pseudo-Bolsheviks whose excesses make oven ilie former rulers of Russia look moderate."

The Bolshevik "Rabotehee Dielo" gives a striking picture of the new women aristocrats' antics. Chief is a certain Varvara Stcljukin, a kinswoman of tho Soviet financial . expert, Tchifdskayeff. For a time Mdme. Stchukin illhabited the Miniature Palace in Moscow of the first "Romanoffs. Sho appointed herself "guardian" thereof, and gave balls at which appeared "grandee dames" of the new aristocracy. Many unodueated women, through the favour of male kinsmen, hold high and weli-paid positions. One, a certain Yevdokieva, accepts watches and rings from porsons who want permits to go abroad. Mdme. Yevdokiqva, "Rabotclieo - Dielo" admits, is entirely illiterate, but she appears abroad in Silk and fur garments of old Boyard design borrowed from different theatres. After failing to acquire a private automobile she ordered the reconstruction and redecoration of a postoffice car, and in this quaint vehicle she whirls over Moscow's cobble stones and pays solemn visits to real but impoverished aristocrats who, for good reasons, receive her with great respect.

"The wives of tho Soviet members of Tver," says tho same newspaper, "have an organisation modestly entitled "Committee for Organisation of Social ;Works," but this committee is in reality a gossip club of garrulous and frivolous women creatures, who shock tho population by their display of malice and greed. The chairwoman claims to control tho people's kitchens. When she makes lior visits of inspection she wears a pale blue robe, carries a gold-toiiped stick, and requires tho cooks and waitresses to come forward ono by ono and kiss her hand.

In a recent spcech Zinovieff, the Petrograd diotator, declared that 140,000 Bolshevik bureaucrats were doing no work. They were "professional comrades." Tlleso are the men whose begemmed and "befurred, but often ragged and unwashed, womenfolk are tho "grandes dames" ol Bolshevism.