The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 1926. RUSSIANS IN EXILE.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 June 1926, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 4, 1926. RUSSIANS IN EXILE.

Russians in exile are scattered all over the world, for there is a vast army of them. Some of the higher das-t have reached as far as New Zealand, and not been above taking menial positions. The number of Russians who have escaped from the Soviet regime and arc now living in exile abroad is estimated at about 2.000,000. These, writes a compatriot to the ‘’London Times” include officers and soldiers of the defeated White armies and their families, politicians, professors, teachers, doctors, lawyers, writers, musicians,, artists, engineers, landowners, hankers, industrialists, clerks, co-operators, and mechanics. All the surviving members of the Imperial Family are m lexile. and also most of the aristocracy. The refugees are scattered over many lands; they have experienced during the last seven years severe privations and extraordinary vicissitudes. Some were rich, most w:ere comfortably off, the majority are well educated. There is great- talent among them—famous scholars, the best Russian novelists i and ppets, many of the best painters and musicians. All have had to start i life afresh in strange lands, to struggle under the most unfavourable conditions 'to keep alive. Help has come from various sides. The first dangerous period of acute distress is past. The problem of mere existence is partially solved. Princesses have become milliners; generals and colonels are working in mines or ironworks in France at £1 a week; hundreds of the taxi-drivers in Paris are Russians who were formerly officers, among them not a few Guardsmen. The big motor works around Paris are full of Russians. Others who were formerly officers are working as dock labourers in Shanghai or as seamen or stewards along the China coast. A good number still remain in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Through the generosity of the Czetho-slovak Government a large number of professors and students — the, latter nearly all former subalterns of the White armies—are maintained in a specially created Russian department of the Prague University. A few professors have found posts in England and United States. A Russian general is assistant in the War Office in Paraguay. A small number of the refugees have clone well. Most just manage to keep alive. A few

have gone under. Among the two millions are all sorts and conditions of men and women. What distinguishes them as a body is their constant patriotism, their undying hostility to the Bolshevists. It is indeed surprising, considering all the humiliation, mis cry, and privations of exile, that so few of the refugees' have taken era ployment under the Soviet Government or compromised with it in any way. Naturally the exiles think of politics, even though they are absorbed in a hard struggle for existence. Their heart is in Russia. They have been through the unparalleled experience of the Revolution and the Civil War. They have been compelled to think more deeply and more painfully about politics than the educated class of any other country in the world. But they arc not yet united—except in hostility to the Soviet regime. All the old parties are represented among the exiles—from Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries through Cadets and Octobrists to the Tlx tre me Right. . Many of the old leaders are among them. Kerensky is in Paris Editing the Dili; Aliliukoff is also in Paris, editing the Posliednia Novosti and leading a small new party called the Republican Democrats, formed during a Bitter campaign waged by Kfiliul,olT against the White armies. Tlw Cadets have practically disappeared, except in so- far as they are still represented in 115,3 Rul ot Berlin and the Sevodina of Riga. The Socialists are comparatively weak; on the other band, there is a very strong Nationalils .sentiment among the exiles which is expressed in devotion to the forms of the Russian national tradition, especially to the Orthodox Church and. very frequently, to the idea of the Monarchy.