WOMAN JUDGE IN PETROGRAD.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 69, 21 March 1919, Page 9

WOMAN JUDGE IN PETROGRAD.

HBB DEATH SENTENCES.

TROTSKY'S AUTOCRACY

In Petrograd it appears there is to the ontsard eye more o*-der than has signed for l on C months. It is, however, JjtKJl the same order as obtains in Pompeii* The city i_> in moral ruin and oa the way to being a physical one, --ftes J. M.N. Jeffrie.. The Nevskl Prospect and all the principal streets are filthy aud uncared for. buildings have been boarded up. jn the ctreefc no one is to be seen but children and men in dirty, unkempt clothing, with the sole exception ot those wealthy Germanic Russians who are hi collusion with Troteky. Xhe.-e latter, to whose class, as is laiomi, Trotsky himself belongs, are the only ones to have obtained general iminunit* 1 " from the massacres and exactions of the Bolshevists. Some few were arrested at the beginning of the •Terror," but were afterwards released, •jlieir money is more powerful to-day than it was even under the Czar's repine, and they go clothed as they please an d live as they please. While Trotsky officially placards his hatred of Capitalism. Capital turns all the wheels in l'etrograd, and anything can *?e done or obtained, almost, for money, provided that a certain amount r.f murder and pillage is permitted to the Red Guards, it now cost- £40 to have a letter delivered to anyone at a prison, and this is .i fair example of the universal --cale of bribery.

Nearly everybody in Petrograd has _ot a false passport proclaiming him as a manual worker of some type or other. This is the only safeguard against arrest, which means the disbursing ot huce sums of money to be freed and may mean death. A sort of census was recently made dividing the population into four classes —vi***.. heavy workers, brain workers in the Soviet and kindred offices, the lesser bourgeois, and the "arch-bourgeois.'*

Of the la**t only about .'SOOO are classified, as the designation iB so dangerous, acd their numbers will steadily decrease as they receive false papers from one or other of the recognised purveyors -who are leagued with the Soviet delegates. DEKUVCIATION BY TELEPHONE.

Xo one knows how many are in the prisons, and executions take place methodically among tho.-e who cannot buy themselves out. The chief victims are Army officers.

There is a sort of Jacobin court, which meets in a street now infamous in Russian ears —the Garochovaia. or "Street of Peas." The chief judge is an obese Jewess, with oiled locks, who lo:is on the seat while all around her press a crew of Soviet delegates, and especially of more or less self-designated members of the "Extraordinary Committee, for Fighting the Counter Revolution, Speculation, and Sabotage."

This woman nominally condemns tive or six officers per day, but how many deaths occur in the prisons really no one knows. Among those imprisoned are the Grand Dukes Sergius, Constantine, Paul, Alexander, and the literary Grand Duke Nicholas. Arrests are made at the sweet will of any Soviet delegates or group of soldiers. All the spies of the old Imperial regime are now in Trotsky's service, along with a new and diabolically efficient group who always can obtain access to him. Denunciations by telephone are very common. An anonymous person rings up the Gar«chovaia and declares that a given individual is an enemy of the Soviet, and the name is entered in a book for arrest immediately. The families of those arrested, unless they can bribe, remain in ignorance of the whereabout, of those carried off.

MAKING WIDOWS. Some unfortunate women -whose husbands have been arrested have later received letters yvhich. on being opened, contained the phrase, "You may consider yourself a widow." All food is practically reserved for the soldiers of Trotsky's army. There have been established by him eating-houses in liSerent districts of Petrograd. but none dare enter them without running the risk of arrest if his appearance displeasee those in charge. Peasants smuggle pieces of bread and some potatoes to the co-wed population that stays hermetically at home. But even there there is no safety, as the soldiers may enter any bouse and do th»re as they please. Furniture ha.s been nationalised (sic) by a decree of Trotek;,. and may be seized b\ them at will. No piece cf furniture may be moved from a house or flat without the permission of one of the usual Soviet delegates.

As might be expected, open war has heen declared upon all forms of religion. Trotsky has sriven great attention to the schools, whither carte of hit army rations are sent regularly, so that the star-vms: population will be sure to send the children there, where food awaits them. In all the schools have been organised compulsory lessons, beginning with the youngest children, to train them in the non-existence of a Divine Being. The courses are pompously termed "Athei-m Courses."

.*_ la\ has been established upon 'ikons,'' the sacred images of the Russian Church. Divorce and marriage have been made a matter of ten minutes before some vague official in the Soviet offices designated for the purposes. Incompatibility of temper secures divorce.

While torture i« consolidating his regime. Trotsky, who is much more the dominating factor than Leiiin. is living In luxury, guarded by Chinese and Lettish troops at Moscow, in the Kremlin. Hp frequently takes journeys, however, in life special train, which an officer who recently saw it described to mc as being composed of fifteen carriages. TROTSKY'S "ROYAL" TRAIN. As he may in the course of a journey havp to live in the train, one carriage is piled with flour-bags, another with all banner of other provisions. In the centre is a saloon car—where he receives visiters—and also his sleeping car. Both are the ex-Czar's cars, and are maintained in the utmost mafrnificenoe. Truck? are run at each end, and sometimes in the centre of the train, on which are mounted light artillery and maciint guns manned by Chinese ;ind Letts. There are two engines, each carrying * guard with a machine gun. The remaining carriage l ; hold Trotsky's suite and mere Chinese Praetorians. The train is afco used by Lenin and ZinoviefT, Trotsky's Viceroy at These precaution? indicate a certain distrust on his part. and. in fact, for all the spread of his movement in the south, dietru.-t docs possess him. BOLSHEVIST OFFENSIVE. His rule is more iron-tiated than the old Imperial reeime. He hae declared among \m intimates that if the Allies make an attack on Petrograd this winter

he would be obliged to evacuate it and defend Moscow, but if they left it till the spring he would defend Petrograd. At the name time he is undoubtedly of opinion that the best defence is attack, and he is to-day projecting what he regards as the first Bolshevist offensive outside his own territory in the .shape of the seizure of half the Polish towns and the countryside of Lithuania.