THE RUSSIAN TERROR.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 January 1919, Page 6

THE RUSSIAN TERROR.

DIRECT DISPATCH FEOM PETHOGRAD. THURIBLE PLIGHT- OP PEOPLE. {From ,tae London Times' Correspondent.) Petrograd, Aug. 14. The last tirhc I attempted to send a message was July 10. The telegraph officials refused to receive it. pursuant to instructions not to accept any more telegrams, either official or private, from British subjects for transmission by the only route till then available, via Alexandrovsk, in Murman. This prohibition still holds good, and is not likely to be relaxed as long as Allied troops remain at Murmansk and Arcnangel This is only the first effect ol tiie steps taken to make our presence in the Russian Arctic littoral more effective for the purposes for which It is intended.

We are also debarred from using the Murmansk and Archangel railways cither for personal or written communication. Nothing from these parts is allowed to reach us. Nor are Russians permitted to go to those regions without special license, whilst military rnea caught projecting or endeavoring to pn>ceed in either of those directions are shot as traitors trying to pass over to the enemy. Many virtuesome victims of the Bolshevist oppression and terror have been sacrificed in this way. We have thus been completely cut off from the outer world for more than a month, as it must be remembered that the Finnish frontier is also closed against us. The same restrictions apply to Frenchmen and Americans and our other Allies, but we are now the chief offenders for the Bolshevists, as we are for the Germans. The others aTe only accomplices in the heinous crimes of trying to recover British property, of helping the Russians against their own misguided countrymen, and against their very real enemies, the Germans. As was argued by a writer under the guise of a French name in a recent number of the Petrograd Gazette, our policy, if not our military authority, governs and controls the I situation on the Western front.

Everything possible i 3 done to excite the ignorant, misinformed, and bewildered populace against us. In this repect the Communistic Commissioners and Deputies set no bounds to their malicious mendacity. Their journals all the time give "news" of general uprisings in India, rebellions in Ireland, labor, railway and munition strikes in England, and the imminent downfall of British Imperialism at home and in the colonies. ■ ■■ ,

Every wall and house front in Petrograd is placarded with demobilisation proclamations in gigantic lettering, calling upon workmen to enroll themselves in the new army to save the' Socialist and proletarian Republic from AngloFrench rapacity and the Czecho-Slo-vaks. This "effusion shows to what desperate straits the Bolshevists are reduced, and the wish is father to the thought in many minds that it may perhaps indicate the beginning of the death throes of Bolshevism. The following outrages passage in this document will show the character oi the rest of it:—- *

With the aid of Russian "black Hundreds," English capitalists are capturing one town after another, taking away our crops, slaughtering our brethren, violating our wives and sisters, and robbing our homes. As tney look upon these English brigands the Germans, who are the most insatiable of all our foes, are sharpening their teeth for a raid on Petrograd.

For British residents here and in Moscow the last two weeks have been a time of gfeat anxiety and terror We are now disqualified, outlawed, and rendered liable to arrest and the confiscation of our personal property at any moment. All banks and other credit institutions have been ordered not to allow us to draw a single kopeck of our deposits and savings, the consequence of which is that many of us are reduced to absolute penury.

PERIL OF BRITISH. The danger of house searches and imprisonment hangs over our heads day and night like the blade of Damocles. The British Consuls and the members of their respective staffs in Petrograd and Moscow, equaly with private individuals, are all subject to the same peril. The Petrograd Consulate is almost daily warned from various sources to be prepared for every emergency. Last Sunday week Mr Bruce Lockhart and tho Consul-General, Mr Wardrop, at Moscow, were arrested, also about 200 other British subjects in the course of a few days. Most of them. I believe, have since been released. Mr Locthart was deprived of his liberty at his residence for only a few hours; theCousulUeneral, who refused to accompany the soldiers, was placed under domiciliary arrest. In Petrograd about a dozen Englishmen have 'been taken, though all but six were liberated after examination. The six men still detained are lodged m a house of preliminary de- | tention, and are apparently to be charged with the absurd accusation of promoting the counter-revolution. Since my last communication the situation in Petrograd has deteriorated in all respects from bad to worse. Anarchy and famine, pestilence, murder, and robbery have become the common terrors of everyday life. Men and women beg, drop down and die in the streets or in the hospitals from starvation or cholera. The latter epidemic began by carrying oil' over 900 victims every 24 hours, but now its virulence has much abated, and there are only about 50 or 60 cases daily. It will be readily understood, however, that statistics cannot be accurate in the present chaos, with the suppression and falsifij cation of fact for political ends Publi- | cation has been stopped of all news- ! papers of every party shade of pubI lie opinion which disapproves of Bolshevism. Only two or three Bolshevist press organs are now issued, so that we are more than ever in the as regards everythirg unfavorable for the power that he At first there was not enough wood and no ready-made coflins for cholera victims, and nobody was willing to do undertakers' work of that unremunerative kind when, ordinary funeralcosts are between £BO and £IOO. according to the pre-war rate of exchange. Therefore many bodies are carted to tho cemetery wrapped inoli newspapers. Tte stench as they lay unfruiied /it days was so repellent, nvcii for irong Russian nostrils, that (Jjn grave-diggers retaed to go neir, RICH MEN A 6 GKAVEDIGGERis.

Orders were then issued for graves to bo dug the corpse interred by man wui women of the hated bourgeois cj&soee, poops of whom were comraanby,

P.ed, Army soiiliers and murched • off or driven to the burial grounds in trollies surrounded by bayonets. Some of the richest men in Petrograd who are being improverished toy frequent imprisonment in order to extort from them large sums of money for their release. including, for instance, one of the ex-mayors of the city, have more.', than once 'been taken to perform this gvuesonie task under threats of Being brought before a revolutionary tribunal. The position of the doctors, who also belong to the bourgeois element, is & most trying one. Many sisters and nurses have succumbed to the deadb disease, various medicaments are quite unobtainable, and the filth and disorder of the lazarettes and hospital wards where the medical men are under the dictation of proletarian patients and attendants, are altogether indescribable. The food difficulties continue to increase to an ever more alarming extent, which, as the Communistic authorities diligently teach their dupes, is due to the combined advance of the AugloFrench invaders from the north and the Czecho-Slovaks from the East. It is believed that the cholera start, jed as a result of the consumption of | half-rotten fish. Existence can only be maintained by selling or pawning everything of any value in order to purchase food from the speculators and hoarders at incredi'ble prices. Domestic animals are becoming scarce. The few remaining horses, except those belonging to the Bolshevists, or worked for their benefit or that of their friends, are mere hide-covered skeletons. A week or two hack eight dead or dying horses were counted over a distance of less than half a mile. The flesh had been cut from sucli dead animals, which had lain on the roadside for several days, and used as human food. There are no more stray dog 3. They have been seen biting the dust and knawing at the kerbstone in the agony of hunger pangs.

. It suits the Bolshevist leaders to accuse the Czecho-Slovaks and their Allies of impeding and stealing food supplies, while they conceal the fact that whole trainloads of grain are being taken from the boats on the Volga at, Nijni-Novgorod and transported to Dvinsk by the Germans, not to mention what is stolen on the way by their own marauders. The Germans in the Ukraine are fighting and executing the peasants who resist ahe requisition of their corn. Bolshevist detachments are doing the same in Russian villages ail over the country. The peasantry near Luga have organised themselves into a considerable force with rifles and machine guns, and three struck loads of dead soldiers whom they killed arrived a few days ago at the Petrograd railway terminus.

VENGEANCE OF OFFICERS. The latest outburst of Bolshevist vengeance is being wreaked on the former Army leaders. During the past two weeks thousands--some say 12,000 —retired or dismissed officer:.' have been arrested and removed in barges io Kronstadt, where they are compelleu io load coal on to v;ar vessels. They are fed on the very lowest minimum of food, and subject to other cruelties. All classes who are dissatisfied with the predatory Socialism now dominant are sure to come under the heavy heels of the Bolshevists sooner or later. At the present moment it is the turn of the British residents, who are all prisoners at large, except those kept for the time: being in durance vile, August 20—All but one of the IS Englishmen arrested here in the last two weeks have now been released on undertaking not to quit Petrograd, and 1 with the proviso that they may be again be deprived of their liberty if thought necessary by the authorities or the Petrograd Commune. In one case the arrest of a well-kown English manager of a large factory produced n strike of all his men, who sent a deputation to demand his liberation as he was indispensable for the continuance of their work. Another Englishman relates that when he was taken into custody by Red Guards the later liist filched every bit of food in his departments, leaving not a crust of bread behind for his wife and family. He waa then marched off and finaly 'lodged in a room containing 26 beds and 3. other prisoners. Great anxiety is felt for all of us as to our eventful fate; whether we are to be permitted to remain here as we are to he interned, or to be driven out ot the country. We hear that the British Consul and other representatives at Moscow are endeavoring to get- permission to leave, also that a special tram is already bespoken for their departure.