RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1918, Page 6

RUSSIA.

THE REIGN OF TERROR. RED BILLOW OF BLOOD FLOWING. ' London, Sept 28. The Moscow correspondent of the Lokal Anzeiger, telegraphing in the middle of September, gives -a frightful account of the Red Terror. He says that a red billow of blood is flowing from Moscow over the whole empire. The Bolshevik leaders declare that the Red Terror will purify the atmosphere, saying that the executions are nothing compared with the millions sacrificed in the war. During the whole French Revolution not so many aristocrats were executed as were executed in Russia last month with only the faintest show of thiai. An extraordinary commission, with branches and sub-branches in the provinces, orders executions as it pleases. The last decree ordering the seizure and execution of the bourgeoisie as hostages whenever the counter-revolutionaries create a disturbance surpasses any of the previous horrors. Recent executions include the former Ministers to the Czar, MM. Tscheglowitoff, Chwostoff, MakarofT, Protopopoff, aftd many others who played an important part in the most recent history. # They were brought before the court and ordered to reveal all the secrets of the Czar's government, and afterwards dragged from their cells at dead of night, convened to the Petrovsky Park, and shot by sailors. Details of these wholesale nocturnal executions are kept secret. They take place in a guarded square, brilliantly j lighted with arc lamps, where a squad of soldiers is always kept in readiness to receive victims from the prison. Ko time is wasted nor pity expended. The majority meet death with dignity. The executions in the provinces include numbers of well-born women and priests. The executioners become victims of the execution habit, like morphia maniacs, eagerly volunteer their services, and are unhappy unless they have shot someone dead. Several Grand Dukes and members of the ICerensky Cabinet are kept "in prison in Moscow. The Bolsheviks laughingly tell the people not to be impatient, they are only spared till a little later. The relatives of the hostaces know nothing of the day or hour of their execution. Wives, mothers, and sweethearts, ignorant of the fate of their loved ones, go everywhere seeking

tidings. The wholesale terror has -had a blud-geon-like effect, and so cowed and terrorised is the population that the whole of Moscow could be put to the sword without an insurrection—Times. Received Sept 30, 11 55 u.m. New York, Sept. '29.

Tt is reported that 1700 persons, mostly former army officers, are being held hostages for the lives of Bolshevik officials ° About 1948 Englishmen are imprisoned in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul on. the pretence that they are implicated in the plot of killing Uritskv, also 20 French citizens, in the same prisons The conditions could not he worse. The prisoners are crowded in groups of 15 and 20, m small, damp cells. Only two or three are able to lie down ni the same time. They are not permitted to exercise. There is no beddin? and practically no food. Forty-four Czecho-Rlovaks were captured and found imprisoned starving to death. Twenty-nine are still imprisoned, and 15 were removed to the hospital in a dying state. —Aus -N.Z. Calif' Assoe. REMOVAL OF GRAND DUKES. AT THE POPE'S INSTANCE Rome, Sept. 20. The Vatican announces, as the result of the Pope's intervention, that the Russian Government has decided to remove all the Crand Dukes to the Crimea for safety.—Aus.-NZ. Cable Assoc. ATTEMPT ON TROTSKY'S LIFE. Stockholm, Sept. 30. A Revolutionary Socialist attempted to assassinate Trotsky, who was slightly wounded in the shoulder. The perpetrator was arrested.—Aus. N.Z. Cable Assoc.