RUSSIAN CRISIS.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 January 1918, Page 5

RUSSIAN CRISIS.

FEARFUL AND FATAL ORGTE.

ODESSA, January 20

A crowd entered the cellars of a distillery and drank freely. They fired the building, two hundred being burned to death.

THE ASSEMBLY

PETROGRAD, January 20

The Allied and neutral diplomats were not invited to the opening of the Constituent Assembly, and no Cadet member appeared. All the Russian railway representatives, at a conference passed a resolution in favour of the formation of a Government responsible to the Constituent Assembly.

CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY DIS-

SOLVED.

PETROGRAD, January 20

Tho Constituent Asembly 'was dissolved by sailors at 4 o’clock in the morning. Many were killed and wounded in Moscow, owing to the Red Guards firing on pro-Constitueut Assembly demonstrators.

FRESH PHASE OF TERROR IN

PETROGRAD.

THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER,

LONDON, January 21

The “Daily Chronicle’s” Petrograd correspondent says that the Constituent Assembly opened on Thursday afternoon. The Bolsheviks withdrew at midnight. The opening marked the inauguration of a fresh phase of terror. The city is hourly sinking deeper into the slough of civil war. The struggle is now between the Social Revolutionaries, who command a majority in the Constituent Assembly, and the Bolsheviks, who* are holding tight to the reins of powcrc. The Deputies included a large proportion of young men, returned political refugees, workers of the revolutionary parties, and a few peasants, workingmen and soldiers. The * ‘Daily Chroncile’s ’ ’ Petrograd correspondent goes : on to say that from 200 to 24.0 Social Revolutionaries, 90 Bolsheviks* ,and. 30 of the Left Social Revolutionaries attended the opening session. . Some of both 5 the Right and Left sections of the People’s Commissaries were amongst the speakers on the tribune, including Lenin, who was apparently in good spirits, chatting with General Krylenko. The Bolsheviks raised a howl of indignation, banged their desks,- and whistled when the Social Revolutionaries proposed that M. Shvetsoff, the senior Deputy, should open the proceedings. The Bolsheviks shook their fists and rushed to the tribune to prevent M. Shvetsoff, conducting the proceedings. The arrival of M. Syerdloff, President of the Executive Committee of the B'olshevik Soviet, stopped the brawl, M. Shvctsoff retiring. M- Sverdloff declared that the Russian * revolutionary flag would spread to all countries, freeing the working class from the yoke of capital He proclaimed the Russian Federal Soviet and Republic, and demanded the Constituent Assembly to recognise -the power of the Soviets, and to confirm their decrees for the nationalities of the land, the banks, and the means of production The declaration added an order to destroy the parasitic classes. Compulsory service will be introduced, the order stating: “The workers shall be armed, forming a Red Socialist army of workers and peasants, while all the propertied classes shall ‘be disarmed.” The Bolsheviks punctuated the reading of this astonishing declaration with calculated bursts of applause, after which the crowd rose and sang the “Internationale.”

M. Chernoff, who was elected President, declared that the Bolsheviks ’ tactics rendered difficult a democratic peace, without the recognition of victors or vanquished. The Constituent Assembly must initiate an international socialistic peace conference to secure such a peace, he declared.

RUSSIAN STATESMEN MURDERED

A REIGN OP TERROR COM-

MENCING,

A COMIC OPERA PARLIAMENT,

Received 8.45.

LONDON, Jan 22,

The Daily Chronicle’s Petrograd corerspondent states that Shingareff, ex-Minister in tHB Provisional Government, and Kokoshkin, a Cadet leader, were murdered on January 20. They came to Petrograd to attend the Constituent Asembly, and were arrested and confined in a fortress. The .imprisonment resulted in illness, and they were removed at their friends’ requests to the Marie Hospital. Leaving the prison at eight in the evening they were murdered the same night. This is the heaviest blow that has been dealt to the Cadets. Shingaerff was a thorough Democrat and scrupu-

lously iionest and single-minded. Kokoshkin was a professor of political science, and next to Miliukoff was the Cadets’ leading theorist The friends of the other Ministers continually fear they will be lynched. The alarm has been raised several times by the Red Guards demanding that the Ministers be handed over for summary treatment. Konovaloff and Tretiakoff hav« been transferred to the hospital. Karatsheff, Bernatozky, Kishkin, and Stepanoff are still in the fortress Peter and Paul.

The Constituent Assembly came to a comic end at five o’clock in the morning. Sailors mounted the tritmnal and demanded that it disperse, as the guard was tired.

Chemoff replied that the deputies were tired too, but must do their duty to the people by carrying Out the great principle of land nationalisation.

The sailors insisted, and the deputies hastily, passed the first batch of resolutions and dispersed. Later the Bolsnevik commissary to the Assembly announced that the Assembly would not meet again, Skvorthoff, the Bolshevik leader, stating that Parliamentary institutions were only a fetish. of the bourgeoisie. Red Guards and sailors continue to patrol Petrograd. Some shooting has occurred, but the fiercest snowstorm of recent years is raging. The correspondent adds: —I cannot tell all the brutalities and excesses which are ravaging Russia from end to end Plunder, accompanied with the cruellest forms of murder are so common that the horrors pall. The tyrannies are worse than under Nicholas 11. The Bolsheviks are wearing the symbol of the muttering forces of social upheaval, loosened by war. Their object is to enable the proletariat to capture the accumulated wealth of civilisation.