BOLSHEVISM.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 November 1921, Page 4

BOLSHEVISM.

RUSSIA’S REFUGEES. (Bv Tom Skcvhill in the Sydney Herald). Of all the Russian Intelligentsia the units in Poland are in tlie„ worst plight. God knows the condition of the thousands who remained in Russia is pitiful enough—they are compelled to perform the most degrading tasks, such as cleaning out the street gutters, mending the sewers, and looking after the sanitary work of the larger cities. The numerous bands ol gallant ollieers Wilio got through to Kolteliak, Denikin, and Wrangel have also bad a terrible time, and tlio thousands ot men, women, and children, scattered all over Europe, are all in a. more or j less unenviable position; but all of j these are at least safe against the j threat of actual starvation. Those working in Russia, so long as they work, are supplied with food and lodgings ; those who fought against the Soviets are either dead or are disarmed, and are eking out a fairly comfortable existence; and even those in all other European countries excepting Poland are getting some help from those respective Governments. But in Poland the Government cannot and will not offer any assistance. The Poles detest the Russians, and they have cause to. For centuries the Czars and the bureaucrats have oppressed them, forbidding the Polish tongue to be taught ill Polish schools, belittling the Roman Catholic Church of Poland, and exalting the Orthodox Church of I Russia; excluding the Poles trout almost all the public offices, and inijxtsing terrible taxes on all and sundry. Is it nnv wonder, then, when these things are taken into consideration, that the average Pole squirts gall at die mention of anything Russian, and is it also any wonder that, now that Poland lias won her freedom, she is keen on obliterating all traces ot Hie bated Muscovite dominion:' She has burled down the Russian statues, discouraged the Russian Church, abolished ihc Russian language in all schools and public olllccs. and even removed the Russian signs from shops and bilild-

Keen if the Polish Government was willing to help, it is extremely doubtful whether it could do anything worth while, for Poland is rapidly approaching an economical, political, and sociological crisis. Even to-day the entire

{.,,001 rv is enveloped in a \esuvian atmosphere of impending disastei. I*or .i\ years the Polish peasants have seen ,|.,.jr i tups commamlcercd. 01 burned, ,n i rumpled under foot by the German, Rus-ian. and Polish armies; and now I hoy have lost bent I. and arc only puttin'. in enough I'm l heir own consumption :-nnd so. with the w inlet It'd Y«t hall in er, the gaunt spectre ol (amine through the land. Then. according to the military party there is the grave danger of another Bolshevik drive next summer. The Polish General Stall' reason that Trotsky is afraid to demobilise his army torfear the millions „!' unemployed would gd out of ham! ; not dare he permit his armies to remain inactive lor long, for inactive soldiers are always siisrept i I,lc to the germs of discontent and mutiny; and so bis only altortialite is war- and the powers that lie in Watsaw believe that, when the Red cohorts go on the rampage again, they will attempt to make Poland the catspaw once more. Personally I accept this with a grain of salt. I know, for 1 have beard it again and again in Russia, from tlio lips of Hod soldiers and Communists, that the Rolshoveki are tired of war. and want peace, so that they can turn their altoninn to economic regeneration. And I also know that the Polish Chauvinists are

-ii amorous of power that they would not hesitate to play upon the emotions ..I their countrymen, and keep this -pc.'trc ol aliothei war dangling heiore all Polish eyes, so that they may still lane an excuse to keep ;i large ailliv in the field. And so Poland is still milit;i l ist it-, and s]H*nds her money oil equipment for the army instead of oil food for the people; and all the while drowns the wails of the starving with trumpet '-alls and httgle hlasls. As a result of this predatory policy the ctiriciicv has ncroplaucd somewhere* up into tin- ethereal blue, and the young and inexperienced Government is saddled with a load heavier than the one 1 1 old Atlas bore.

And in (lie midst of this chaos are die Russian Intelligentsia. Ignoied by the (lovci iiinenl and abandoned by their more fortunate friends, they try to find work, but. wbat can they dor They cannot speak the language, and, oven if they could, they would still be unable to break down die old ptejodiees; they have never attempted ordinary labour Indore, ami are either tnn weak ov 100 old io still 1 it now, and, more poignant still, they ar<\ its all Russians aro, most impi ai t iral oi all the white races. They my only grown-up children ; eys, simple, lovable, idealistic children.

The Russian Red Cross —the old, not the new—supply them with two meals a day. I stayed for one ol those meals. Mr gorge still rises at the thought of it. The menu was bad, frightfully bad : barely enough to sustain life on; potato soup, cabbage, ami carrots. Tt is the same every day. Is it. to be wondered at that two-thirds of the refugees sutler cruelly I'r mute indigestion 'f Over two thousand wete fed in the two hours that I was there. A tragic, emaciated assemblage they were ; some of them clad only in the filthiest rags, through the various rents of which their wasted flesh was plainly visible; some were shoeless, some hatless, and some dirty and scabby.

Here ami there I noticed a few who, as though with an I lereulanean effort, still showed traces of better days. These latter, I learned, were the best workers in the whole colony. lieilueed to the lowest depths of hunger and misery, they still proudly, resolutely refused to accept charity, and nobly [ worked for their keep. How tragic it was to see famous old generals answering calls ami mending hoots (striving while they wept), eminent scientists and philosophers compounding unsavoury dishes, and princesses and countesses scrubbing, washing, and sowing. Doubly tragic these things when one pauses and considers that these are the very men and women sorely wanted in Russia to help rebuild after the desolation : and yet they cannot, they dare

not, return, for there is a price on their heads. Unfortunately, these rare souls were in the minority. The great majority look cowed and beaten; they seemed to have lost heart and given up the struggle. They sit or walk about with an awful look of complete abandon on their faces, and an expression of double-distilled agony in their eyes, which tells only too plainly that the cold iron of despair is biting into their souls.

At first 1 could not account for this surrender, this utter loss ol hope, but at last 1 solved tlio mystery, when an . old courtior said to me, “Do not pity us, for we have done much to bring this upon ourselves blinded , with power and riches we lost the com- | limn touch, and losing it ew tailed to | read the writing on the wall until it j was too late, and Babylon bad fallen | again, and so here we are to-day, ex- ; piating our own sins, and our latbei s , sins, and their fathers’ sins, back i through the generations of the past. . . and, 0! God, the load is heavier than | wo can hear.” Indubitably there was a ; lot of truth in this outburst, and yet it was not altogether fair, for T knew down it) my heart of hearts that manv of these intelligentsia wore .sincere patriotic Russians, who loved their own "musjiks” dearly, and who bitterly condemned and deplored the autocratic, tyrannous formulas of the unscrupulously minority who controlled t-ho dcstinies of Russia. * An old woman interested me exceedingly. ‘ She sat apart in a listless attitude, as though out ol touch with the whole world. She was dirty, and shabbily dressed, and stuin|>od on her face was a look of unutterable horror. Tbev told me her story. She was formerly one of the richest countesses from the Don Cossack region. The Bolshevists arrested her and her husband for the "atrocious crime of being aristocrats.” Fur moinhs they shivered and starved in gapl. ignorant of what crime they were charged, and then, one cold afternoon in midwinter, a squad of “Reds" came to take them, so they said, to another and more comfortable prison. The way was long flip! the temperature was below zero. Soon all were freezing, and then, half way along the journey, the "Reds” bad a conference, at w.liieh they decided, as the weather was so severe, that they would not proceed any iurtlier. but would return to their warm barracks at mice. They then bayoneted the busband to' 'lentil, and beat I lie old lady into insensibility with the butts of tlmir rilles. Js it any wonder that she sit s apart ! J

The young man who gave out tin soup was, beti>re tin* revolution, mos famous and popular ol all Russian nc lors. One of the cooks was a Gram Knight of the Ordci of St George The youth who «as allotted to esem me buck lo my hotel told me oil Hr wav that his lathci wa- lortncrly ; milliona iic, and that to-day he rots ii

a paii|K*r‘s grave, while bis three sisterwho were intimate Ii iends of the Grand Duchesses in the old days, now hide their shame in some unknown Russian city. He was a student nt the {University of Petrograd right up to the advent of the Bolshevists, and now he sleeps, uncovered, on a bare, hard table in an unhealed room. I ofleretl to help him, but he would not accept a single mark. Finally lie agreed to give me Russian lessons for one dollar a day. "He has put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted those of lower degree."