ILLUSIANS ABOUT RUSSIA.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3381, 9 January 1920, Page 6

ILLUSIANS ABOUT RUSSIA.

i In view of the present ‘state Of 1 affairs in Russia the following extract f:'l'l'onl an article in the Westminster Gazette is of iuterest:—— '1 “Most of the ideas prevalent about: the Russian parties_- and. their welfare’ appear to be illusions. The idea which is honestly entertained by large numbers of working people about Bolshevism is certainly no illusion. In its present stage, at all events, it is not -an uprising of liberty against tYl‘a—lmY but a hard; autocracy which is holding the working class in the closest grip ever applied to it. It requires compulsory service, forbids strikes, and exacts a minimum output on pain] of death or sta.rv*a.tion. It is organised ‘ in such a military way and develop-{ ing on such rnilit~a.ry lines that there sometimes seems to be -a serious possibility that it will ‘become a fullblown militarist State in succession to Prussianism. Correspondingly the idea of the lanti-Bolshevists as fighting anarchy is also .an illusion. There is, no doubt, anarchy, or lack of government in large parts of Russia, which are happy enough to be remo_te from the civil conflict, but the struggle is between two systems, either of which is likely to become a -despotism if it establishes itself. We are-inclined to accept the testimony‘ which speaks favourably of Deniken and Kolch-a.k.i but there is other abundant testimony! that behind these leaders are vast‘ numbers of adherents of the old re-1 gime who have no object in View but to get back their land and their property land to re-establish some form of autocratic Goirernment. A large number of these are more in sympathy with the Germans than with the Allies, and will freely join up with the former if they see any advantage in so doing.‘ It is predicted even by those who take :1. f»a.vour'able view" of the anti-Bolsheviks, that their triumph will-be followed by a dic'fatol'sh-ip and a White Terror, and in all -probability the undoing of the‘ ‘ peasant settlements on the land, which appear to be the one hope of a newi order in Russi'a.’.’ _