RUSSIAN MIX-UP

Hokitika Guardian, 20 January 1920, Page 2

RUSSIAN MIX-UP

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.!

DENEKIN’S PLIGHT. LONDON, Jan. 16

The “Daily Express” correspondent interviewed Deniken at Taganrog. He attributes the defeat to the overwhelming masses of the enemy from other fronts. He refuses to parley with the Bolsheviks and says that he would hang every body implicated in the Bolshevik reign. Russians are anti-Bolshevik at

heart. He denied that the volunteer army favoured the restoration of Cznrism. Even if he was beaten, the ! struggle would continue until the righteous cause triumphed. He still hoped, with the Allies help, to destroy the Soviet’s power. Deniken added.—We are fighting to establish a free, democratic state, but there must be a united, indivisahle Russia, including the Baltic States. The correspondent adds there are terrible scenes to tile south. Great masses of refugees are tleeing before the red terror. The French are laying ' many guns, and a squadron of British aviators, disregarding the War Office orders continues to harry the Bolsheviks.

FAILURE OF ALLIES. (Received this day at 8.40 a.m.) LONDON, January 16. A review of the Bolshevik peril states that the situation revealed yesterday by Hon. W. Churchill and Admiral Beatty’s sudden call to Paris, is most serious. The Allies are now reaping the fruits of their lack of statesmanship iu dealing with Boshevism since the armistice. The trouble has been that the Allies have dissipated the efforts they gave in support of Deniken, Sansanoff and Yudenitch, but the assistance given was never sufficient to secure victory and was given regardless of the necessity of a connected policy. The Allies now realise that all the generals have failed then. Lenin and Trotsky have the whole of Russia and Western Siberia at their mercy. Tile Allied leaders seem utterly at a loss how to meet the peril. France would doubtless like Britain to put in forces in Russia, if only to save some of her for which the French investors are

anxious to secure grants to work the mines, forests etc. There is not the least likelihood of this, as public opinion in Britain is strongly averse to renewing the war iu Russia. The pity is as John Ward says—“ln the middle of 1918, forty thousand Britishers could have got through to Petrograd and wiped out I'o’siievisin. Now the Red Armv numbers two millions or more.

It is true the force hos been raised by terrorism, hut it is formidable.” The danger in the East is serious. Peace with Turkey is nob yet seemed and I there are elements favourable to tlio spread of Bolshevism in Asia Minor. Deuiken’s breakdown leaves the road to India open to Bolshevik elements who are already at the heart of Britain’s quasi failure in Afghanistan. The war has increased the danger while there is much unrest among the border tribes. It is obvious that a precaution as to the control of .Persia and* of the Caspian, where the loyal Russian warships should immediately be manned bv the British Navy and the situation secured. !