BOLSHEVIK CRISIS.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1920, Page 7

BOLSHEVIK CRISIS.

' RITUATIGN REVIEWED, If iriegtapU.— Pres3 Assn.—Copyright. London, Oct. i. A. special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who was recently in Moscow, telegraphs from Riga confirmation of _ numberless direct reports that Bolshevism baa reached a most extreme crisis. ■ Anti-Bolshevik activities in Eetrograd, with the assassination of commissaries, reflect the temper of the country. The Polish war, from being at first a popular war in modern Russia, has become unpopular. The people want peace at any price. There has been a terrible winter, with famine as severe as in 1891, but on a wider scale. Amidst a population exhausted by war and. starvation there threatens to be a dreadful horror if General Wrangel succeeds in cutting off supplies from the south-east. Titus the Bolshevik strategy is to permit the Polish advance to spend itself in the devastated north, whilst the Bolsheviks are concentrating forces against General Wrangel. Meanwhile the terror directed from Moscow is intensified. Much depends upon whether the secret police and senior officers of the army, who long have accepted the Bolshevik regime as a temporary government only, will think the time has come to (dislodge it.—United Service. SOVIET TERRORIST TACTICS. London, Oct., 4. Reports from Moscow show that the 'Soviet is thoroughly alarmed at the increasing desertions from the Red army, and drastice measures have been taken to secure a new registration of ablebodied men, with a dire threat of punishment for those who seek to evade military service.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.