REACTION IN RUSSIA.

Taihape Daily Times, 29 January 1918, Page 3

REACTION IN RUSSIA.

COLD, HUNGER AND VICE.

London, January 10.

The Times’ correspondent at Petrograd states that the temperature is 18deg. below freezing point. For three days there has been a blinding snowstorm. Thoroughfares are blocked and traffic is stopped, aggravating me wretched conditions of existence and impelling transport. Food is scanty, and tne population is hungry. The situation is critical, ana breau riots are expected.

The bolsheviks are applying wholesale socialism. Daily decrees are issued in which the upper classes are commanded to shovel snow and cleau the streets under the direction of former employees, factory hands, waiters, and domestics. All relations have been reversed, and everything has been turned topsy-turvy. Passive resistance largely nullifies the orders, except when they are accompanied by armed force.

The city is full of riots, disorders, burglaries, robberies, and murders of the most audacious ’form, and of hitherto unknown extent_ Everything is hopelessly muddled and disorganised. While many British people are returning to England, the German delegates are busily arranging to reimwse the German economic yoke.