RUSSIAN FASCISTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 50, 28 February 1935, Page 15

RUSSIAN FASCISTS.

PROPAGANDA CENTRE. EMIGRE ORGANISATION. TO STRIKE IF U.S.S.R. GOES TO WAR. (By a Special Correspondent.) PROVIDENCE, P. 1., January 19. * "The Russian Fascist party is the automobile for the ride to Kremlin. All it needs is a push." This graphic statement about the organisation that seeks the overthrow of the. Communistic regime in Russia comes from a man who, for more than ten years, has lived quietly on a farm in Thompson, Connecticut, and who was once a special student at Brown University. From the farmhouse Anastase Andreivitch Vonsiatsky directs the affairs of the Russian Fascists, a counterrevolutionary party with units in all parts of the world, and which, in the space of little more than a year, has built up a. membership of more than 20,000 exiled Russians.

Waiting for Soviet War. ''The Day" will come when the "U.S.S.R. becomes involved in a war. Mr. Vonsiatsky is concerned not at all •with the identity of the nation fighting against the Soviets. But the Russian Fascists aim to be ready so that, when ■war does come, they can flood Russia with propaganda against the Reds, turn the army against Stalin and other Communistic leaders, and set up a new Government.

Beyond that point Mr. Vonsiatsky does not go in outlining his programme. The new government, he says, unquestionably will be some form of dictatorship. But the party is less concerned about the precise nature of tlie government that is to supplant the Reds than in "liberating the Russian people from tyranny and oppression."

The Russian, now a naturalised citizen of the United States, discusses his cause in a little house of field stone that adjoins the farm house in which he lives. This building, unofficial headquarters of the Russian Fascist party, is decorated in a martial manner to recall to Mr. Vonsiatsky as nearly as possible the dormitory barracks he occupied as a cadet in the Imperial Military College in St. Petersburg. In addition to the impressive collection of rifles, bayonets, swords and helmets from various wars, there is a rack, just inside the front door, holding enough modern army rifles to equip a platoon of men. Asked whether the rifles were _for defence in case of any retaliation against his counter-revolutionary activities, Mr. Vonsiatskv admitted that "they would be useful." But he quickly added that he is conscious of no great danger in America. "In other countries it would be dangerous," he said, recalling that during his visit to the White Russian colony in Harbin he was constantly accompanied by a bodyguard. His family, members of the nobility, owned country estates in Ukrania. _ Mr. Vonsiatsky becomes rather cryptic about his position in the old nobility, and, although he has been referred to as Count Vonsiatsky, clearly indicates that he assumes no title to-day. Indeed, he savs that "in my work it xa a drawback that I come from the nobility. When the Czarist regime was overthrown and the Reds rose to power, Mr. Vonsiatsky and many other cadets from the Imperial Military College, went to the region of the Don Cossacks, in ' November, 1917, and joined the White Russian military force of between and 500 men. Early on the morning of November 26, according to Mr. Vonsiatsky, the White Russians began moving on Rostov and encountered a Red force of 6000 men about six miles from the city. After several hours of fighting, the Beds retreated, leaving 500 killed and 2000 prisoners. "Because our group was so small, we were unable to guard these prisoners," Mr. Vonsiatsky said, so we had to shoot them with machine guns. Calls Reds Better Propagandists.

Although the White forces under Wranorel and General Deniken had better equipment than the Red armies, they •were defeated in the three-year struggle, Mr. Vonsiatskv says, because the Redo used propaganda;. Because he was suffering from Bolshevik bullet wounds—he still has one inside liim —and from frozen legs, i r. Vonsiatsky was put in the British hospital at Gallipoli. When he was discharged, his orrily possessions were his battered uniform and a pair of hospital slippers. From Gallipoli, Mr. Vonsiateky went to Paris and then came to the United States. He worked for a time in the factory of the' Baldwin Locomotive Works outside Philadelphia, and, after liis marriage in 1922, moved to Thompson. Mrs. Vonsiatskv is the former Marion Ream Stephens, of Chicago and New York, daughter of the late steel and wire magnate, Melvin B. Ream. Mr. Vonsiatsky says he has been engaged in counter-revolutionary work ever since he left Russia. His early activities were as a member of several small secret organisations dedicated to overthrowing the Red order.

The Russian Fascist party, formed by Mr. Yonsiatsky and some of his fellow emigres more than a year ago, elicited so much interest among Russians in all parts of the world that the organisation soon became international in scope, and the world meeting was held in Harbin. Members of the party take no part in the political affairs of the countries in •which they now live, Mr. Yonsiatsky explained.

"We are simply making use of the things the Reds taught us," Mr. yonsiatskv said. "By propaganda in a time of national stress, they won over the army. We propose to win it back again in the same way."

To be ready when the break comes, the Russian Fascist party, is training agitators. There is a school in Harbin at the present time, and Mr. Yonsiatsky said it is not unlikely that the unit of the party in New York so"n will organise a school there. The party when the opportunity of addressing the masses in Russia arrives, will promise better living conditions, more pay, better food and clothing, and actual ownership of the land. "We will tell them, the land you took by revolution will to you under the Russian Fascist party," Mr. Yonsiatsky says.

From ISO.") to KM ! Red agitators told Hussion soldiers not to light for arid defend the C::nr. Now. we are gomg to tell them not to fight.for Stalin. We seek the return of Russia to the Russians. and Will pive them back their religion, their culture, their liftcionul traditions." —(N.A.N. A.)