RUSSIAN CRISIS.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 December 1917, Page 5

RUSSIAN CRISIS.

FAMINE THREATENS PETROGEAD MUNICIPAL EMPLOYEES STRIKE Received S.IO PETROGEAD, Doe. 26. The Council of Commissaries have assigned two million roubles for revolutionary propaganda in foreign countries. Municipal employees at Pctrograd arc calling a strike, embracing hospitals water supply and food. The situation in the city is worse and famine threatens, in weeks to come. COMING RUSSIAN EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE. i Received 10750. PETROGRAD, Dec 27. An engineer has submitted to the People’s Commissariat a perfected guillotine, electrically worked, capable of decapitating five hundred victims simultaneously. MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP LONDON, December 26. Mr Williams, telegraphing from Pctrograd on December 25th states: — The People’s Commissaries are forming a n ewealendar. They are abolishing Christmas, Easter and the Gregorian Calendar. The new system "will be introduced on January 6th. Thousands of former officers, degraded from the army, have formed a working union, and are unloading trucks at railway stations earning twenty roubles daily. The Government has evicted civil servants who wore striking against Leninism from their official quarters, arresting the loaders. The suppression of newspapers has idled, the majority of journalists. An army of municipal employees are out of work, and professors, lawyers, and notaries arc idle. The 'whole thoughtproducing system of Russia is in abeyance. The Austro-Genmas have conC-etrated a ihuge, forceon the south-western front.mil or :■<- ■ Trotsky has ordered the immediate arrest, of Parsons, who invited Chinese troops 'to enter Harbin. '■■rur •• r _ ■n GERMANS DON’T WANT AGITATORS ■ LONDON, December 26. a The German commanders have confiscated the entire issues of the newspaper “The Torch,” which the Commissaries were distributing amongst tho ' German troops. The commanders decline to permit agitation in their armies, RESTORATION OP RELATIONS AMSTERDAM, December 26 A Gcxmian commission, provided by the-armistice, is proceeding to Petrograd to arrange for the exchange of civilian and unfit war prisoners, and the restoration of Russo-German relations within defined limits. A NEW GOVERNMENT

VANCOUVER, December 26

The Russian Consul at Seattle has been advised by cable via India of the establishment of a new Russian Government at Voronagc, on the Azov Sea. It is believed the leaders arc members of Kerensky’s Provincial Government who fled from Potrograd.'