SHAKING HANDS WITH MURDER.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 January 1920, Page 4

SHAKING HANDS WITH MURDER.

UNDER THE IRON HEEL IN RUSSIA.

LONDON, Nov. 13,

Tlie latest and most trustworthy authority on conditions in Bolshevik Russia is without doubt Mr Paul Dukes, who escaped from Petrograd this autumn after spending 10 months there as a Bolshevik at the risk of his life. His articles in “The Times” have shown him to be a fair and careful observer. Yesterday I put to h-’rn a series of questions, and I give his answers Is Russia free under the Bolsheviks? ' There is no freedom to-day of any kind in any sphere in Russia. 'Every I printing-press in the country is exclusively controlled by the Bolsheviks. Not a newspaper, advertisement, pam- ' phlet, or leaflet can appear without 1 their sJarisetion.. The people have no | means of expressing their will in [ speech or writing. No meeting may be held except under the auspices of 1 Bolshevik officials.

The trade unions must have officials who are agents of the Bolshevik Party; it is almost imposible for any non-Bol-shevik to he on any works committee. Workmen are reduced to slavery because they have no means of expressing their opinion and cannot vote in any election as they wish. In such strikes as have occurred the first demand is always for freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of elections, and cessation of the counter-re-volutionary war. Is Russia happy under the Bolsheviks ?

Russia is undoubtedly unhappy under the Bolshevik i-egime. The misery now is greater than at any time under the Czars. The Bolsheviks and their officials as such are abominated by the general population for their petty tyranny. The whole country wants a fairly elected Constituent Assembly, but that is the last thing the Bolsheviks arc likely to grant, because a Constituent Assembly would certainly abolish the Bolshevik system and probably shoot the Bolseviks. The people of Petrograd are like whipped dogs, thoroughly cowed and terrified. It is an astonishing thing that as far as I know none of the recent British visitors to Bolshevik Russia has been able to consult the opinion of his own countrymen who are still in Bolshevik Russia. I advised several of them to accept work in Bolshevik institutions and thus to escape arrest as hostages. They could tell the truth about Russia. AVe must suppose that the Bolsheviks refused the visitors permission to see these unfortunate people. Is it true that the Bolsheviks arc aliens who are inflicting foreign theories on the Russians? Bolshevism is not Russian; it is not native to Russia. All its leaders studied German theories in foreign countries in exile axxd are quite out of touch with the Russian people. Lenin never hesitates to declare his admiration for the German people, and speaks even of Kaiserist Germany as the greatest country the world lias ever seen ,though he also denounces Kaiserism and the non-Spar-taeus Socialists. He allows the German Soviets, which are powerful in Petrograd and Moscow, preferestial treatment in the matter of food.

The German Soviet has in Petrograd 20,000 to 60,000 German soldiers who tiro said to he prisoners of war, but it would be interesting to know whence they get their new German uniforms. Lonies filled with bread are often seen driving about Petrograd with German soldiers in them- when Russians can get no bread.

Yet the Russian people are violently anti-pathetic to Germans ; the Russian peasants are quite incapable of understanding the theoretical side of Bolshevism, and do not want to work their land on the Communist system. Indeed they forced the Bolsheviks to annul their decree enforcing the Communist system of agriculture. The demand of the Russian workmen for “free trade” is a demand for the right to buy and to sell food as in England instead of the Bolsheviks doing it for them under the Communist system.

What about the rose-coloured pictures of life under the Bolsheviks painted by a few visitors P In Petrograd there is great untidiness in the streets; filth and rubbish lie about. The tramways work for four hours a day and electric light is only allowed from 8 to 10 in the evening. The one thought of everyone is to get food; the vitality of the whole population has been depressed in the most extraordinary degree by want of food, and it struck me as extraordinary that people could keep alive on so little for so long. The want of fuel is, if possible, more serious. The want of both food and fuel is due entirely to Bolshevik mismanagement. There is food enough in Russia to feed half Europe; the ridiculous methods of distribution and the Bolshevik muddling of the railways and interference with trade are entirely responsible for the starvation of the towns. The Russian forests could supply all Europe with timber, yet through Bolshevist maladministration people in the cities are freezing, and the Bolsheviks are actually pulling down wooden houses to burn them.

The railways keep running somehow or other, with a very bad and crowded service, but they are getting worn out. All the textile factories in Petrograd have closed for want of coal. The enfeeblement and diorganisation of the workers can be seen from the fact that tli© Putiloff works, which onco turned out 10,000 shells per day, in August wore turning out 200 per month, and are producing one locomotive every six months. Those are some practical results of Bolshevism, Do the Bolsheviks commit atrocities and torture? Extraordinary Commissions have been established in every town for the suppression of counter-revolution. These have arbitrary power and can condemn to death without trial —indeed trial is the exception rather than the rule. As every misdeed may be interpreted as counter-revolutionary, other means of justice, such as “people’s courts,” exist only in name. As to torture, I know nothing except that the Extraordinary Commissions resort to it to obtain evi deuce. There aro constant executions in Fort Peter and Paul by machine-gun fire, and though I have not been to the

Petrograd Zoological Gardens and looked for myself, people are always asking why the beasts there are so fat when there is no meat to be had. They are convinced that the bodies of victims are given to the animals. I have already said that the population in Petrograd is cowed and submissive, so that no open display of violence is needed there.

Are the Bolsheviks hostile to Christianity ? Nominally they tolerate all religions, but they regard them all with extreme contempt and do their utmost to convert people to what they call reason. Their Press is filled with blasphemous and filthy references to the Russian clergy. Although there is no doubt hat in the past many of the Russian clergy were corrupt, the effect of Bolshevik treatment of the priests has been to make the people look upon every priest as a martyr. If the Bolsheviks leave the Churches alone it is not because they respect the conscience of the people but because they have a deep fear of the strength of religious conviction.

Is it true that that the Bolsheviks in the mass' are ruffians and criminals P The sum-total of the Bolshevik regime is bad; among the leaders are some of the vilest of humanity. But it is also true that there are a few—a very few — men of progressive and idealistic tendencies. Lunarcharskv is such. Zinovieff, on the other hand, and Trotsky also are capable of any cruelty. Many regard Lenin as an honest man. The Bolshevik officials get preferential treatment in the matter of food, and Lenin has said that 39 per cent of. them are swindlers and 60 per cent fools.

Would the Bolsheviks keep any agreement or treaty we made with them ? They are willing enough to promise concessions to foreign Powers, which, they hope, would indirectly aid them to maintain their grip on Russia. They have not kept agreements in the past. For instance, they agreed to allow the more moderate Socialists this year to. issue a newspaper. When the Moderates produced their paper and did not fill it with abuse of Koltchak and the Allies, they declared it counter-revolu-tionary and suppressed it. This concession the Bolsheviks advertised to Europe by wireless as an example of their moderation and then tore it up after it had served their purpose. Gan Bolshevism last?

It means destruction and it cannot endure. Economically it has broken down. The peasant to-dav accepts it only because with the absence cf a free Press and free speech the Bolsheviks invent the most lurid tales about the Whites and the Allies, and the peasant, used to misery, submits to the present tyranny fearing yet greater horrors to come. The soldiers and the Red Armies are held together by fear of starvation if they desert and by a want of confidence in the success of the Constitutionalists.