RED RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1919, Page 5

RED RUSSIA.

A REIGN OF TERRORISM. BLACK DAYS IN PETROGRAD. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Vancouver, Nov, 17. Professor Bray, English professor for 30 years in Russia, two years of which were under the regime of the Bolsheviks, who sentenced him to death, interviewed, stated that conditions in Russia were appalling and it was impossible to exaggerate them.. Life was the cheapest thing in the country and terrorism reigned everywhere—Aus. and K.Z. Cable Assn. Hclslngfors, Nov. 15. Deathlike stillness broods over Petrograd. A correspondent says that a com{>etent observer who escaped on Novemler 11 relates how the few inhabitants are to be seen hurrying phantom-like through the streets. They are mostly putty-faced women and children, with an occasional old man. These present pictures of the deepest despair. The arrival of the frost, dealt, the last blow to the vanishing hopes of relief. The mercenaries imported a virulent variety o'f typhus and thousands of the starved and weakened people are dying daily. The latest prices ot food include bread at" 350 roubles a pound, butter IROO roubles, horse flesh 500 roubles, other flesh, believed to be human. 100 roubles, herrings 80 roubles. Coffee, sugar, and clothes are unobtainable. The Red commissionaries live luxuriously and their women, covered with furs and diamonds, attend entertainments amidst the city's tragedy.—Times Service.

WAR IN RUSSIA. ' THE FALL OF OMSK. London, Nov. 15. A Bolshevik wireless message claims •the capture of Omsk with a thousand prisoners. The seriousness of the loss of Omsk is minimised owing to Koltchak's. recognition that it was inevitable. He has been evacuating troops and stores. for weeks and declares his intention of carrying on the campaign despite the loss. A wireless message from Moscow states that the Green Army of 70,000 men in Denikin's rear seized a sector on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and formed local Soviets. The Rciiin correspondent of the Daily News states that much ammunition, rifles, and even tanks which: Ihc Allies supplied to Denikin and Yudenitch are reaching the Bolsheviks, owing to the corruption of some anti-Bolshevik offi-cials.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. THE O'GRADY MISSION. EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS. London. Nov. li>. It is officially pointed out that Mr. 'negotiations with Litvinoff at Copenhagen refer exclusively to the exchange of prisoners. Litvinoff is now en route, accompanied by two British prisoners. There is much curiosity regarding Mr. O'Grady's mission in view of a statement made in Copenhagen newspapers that the conference, besides dealing with the question of prisoners will also deal with the closer relationship of the Entente with Soviet Russin. In reply to criticisms, it is officially stated that Mr. O'Gradv's mission is solely to discuss with I.itivinofl, the return of British civilian and military prisoners who are at present in the hands of the Soviet Government. It involves no question of the discussion of any other subject.—Renter.