INTERNAL RUSSIA.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1922, Page 2

INTERNAL RUSSIA.

AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION. | SOVIET DISARMING. MOSCOW January 1. Trotsky informed the Soviet Congress that the Red Army was demobilised from 5,300,000 last year to 1,370000. Forty-three per cent of the officers are workers of the peasant type who had no military education. They are the best revolutionary material and without them the Army would be impossible. “Everyone in he said, “wants peace, and no one desires expansion but should Russia be attacked we shall prove in 1922 that it is easier for Russia to expand than for our enemies to encroach on our territory.” A DENIAL. (Ruceived This Dav at 9.40 a.in.) PARIS, Jan. 3., The Ministry of Foreign Affairs have issued a statement formally denying the alleged Franco-Japanese agreement regarding Siberia. A POLAR. TRAGEDY. AMUNDSEN’S EXPEDI- ' TION. LONDON, Dec. 30. A message from. Moscow, via Christiania, says that a Russian expedition, searching for two missing members of the Amundsen expedition, found at dape Wild a letter from the missing) nen, dated November 10th, 1919, statng that they had only sufficient 1 food 'or twenty days, as Polar bears had deitroyed the depots. Subsequently the expedition found the ashes of a fire die remains of a charred human body, mllets and other articles, which are egorded as evidence that on© of the nissing men is dead. No trace was ound of the other ffinn.