ANARCHY IN POLAND.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 66, 15 September 1906, Page 5

ANARCHY IN POLAND.

THE REVOLUTIONARY FORCES ,AT WORK. (London Tribune correspondent.) WARSAW, 30th July. Am armes, citoyens 1 Formez vos batai'.lons! Marchons! Marchons! qu'un sang ..i .-; iinpur Qu'un sang impur Abreuvo nos Billons. A music-loving Polo is whistling in t,he sunlit court beneath my window. The burden of his song, is the call to revolution. • '' • Fifteen months ago, vrhen last I was in Russia, Warsaw was a city of care-fully-nurtured frivolity—of balls and carnivals, of operas nnd theatres. Its causewayed etreets rang to the hoofs of proud stallions harnessed in equipages from London and Berlin. Its shops rivalled those of Bond-street and the Rue do le Paix. Its* pavements reflected the beauty of Poland, tho unifoimed pride of All the Russios. To-day gaiety is dead in tho land. Wealth is fled. 'Beauty does not venturs across the threshold, of its domicile. Officers no. longer strut alon-t the sido walks, but dourly ride at the head of eul-len-faced patrols. i Thero is not a private carriage to be seen in Warsaw; but, just now, I watched a green and gloomy vehicle with highup grated! windows drive through a guarded gate into a prison. Before it, on each side, and behind, was a mounted escort of Cossacks. As it passed me, I saw against the sun the shaggy sil- | houettes of men the public claim as j patriots If these men die, as their predecessors I have died, to-morrow the lives o» double ! their number will bet exacted from tho soldiers, the police, tho Government officials, according to the rank of tho condemned Two murders are committed every day in Warsaw. Each murder represents an expiation in blood. TWO' GREAT PARTIES. There aro two great parties in Russia, —the Nationalist and tho Socialist. Both are revolutionnry. Tho Nationalist partyis revolutionary with a desire "to substitute for a Government which it deems effete one which will preserve to the Fatherland its birthright of independent "power. Tho Socialist party is icvolutionivry with a desire to improve the status of the masses without heed to tho position of Russia' among the nations, or indeed to her preservation as a nation at all. Here, in Poland, the Nationalists successfully have evaded' the law which, until a year ago, prevented the assembling together of popple in public meeting. They have formed an the present year vast numbers of olubs, which have for their ostensible object the practice of athletics in tho open-air. The Teal aim is to unite the people for a common purpose, to give thorn opportunity for discussion, Und to train them in physical culture. In addition, the Nationalists have formed' great School Unions all^ over Poland. These- unions havo collected lwrge sunn of money to bo utilised' in tho building of schools, tho employment of Polish teachers, and the nurture of the Polish language. By these means the Poles havo united together in 1906 in a manner that has been impossible smco Nicholas crushed the insurrection of 1830. THE PARTY OF REVOLUTION. Distinct from this movement is tho P.P.S., or Polish Party Socialistic. Thia party accepts all that has been dono by tho Nationalists, but considers their programme 100 indefinite, too idealistic, ty> slow. Tho P.P.S. is the Party of Ac tion. Its adherents clnim that the present is a time of actual revolution Their mothod is war to the knifo. This Party of Revolution has Ret ltosli to remove by dnutb officials amity of maladministration, including in _ this class all officers of polico and administrators of railways; to seize Government moneys j to demolish Government buildings,'inoluding railway offices and railway tracks; to destroy properties wed in tho preservation of monopolies, with special lcfcrence- to tho Government voilku, chops; to vefwo to pay Government taxes; to refuse to act as or to \nima "the provision, of coiiet'ripib. Under this programme murder is nf<; in the land. Tho party is controlled by ». committee, w.ho«£ constitution nobody

knows. This committee holds regular courts, arraigns, tries, condemns its victims and appoints executioners from among the general members. Not only docs it condemn to death officials guilty of maladministration, but it includes within its jurisdiction retributive justice. If an official condemn a member of the P.P.S., or arrest him or assist at his execution, he is marked for speedy death. If the guards of a prison gang lire open to attack they are waylaid and murdered. If the escort of Government moneys defend their, treasures they are killed. Or.o result of this organised movement Las been the formation of bands of highwaymen who blackmail, and rob, and murder under pretence of acting for the P.P.S. These aro hunted down by the committee ?e ruthlessly as the officials they are sworn to destroy. Equally su«j is their vengeance upon any one attacking private as distinct from Government property. Landowners, factory owners, or their representatives who have refused to obey the bebjate of the committee all pay, sooner or later, for their contumacy with their lives. With them die the members who have failed to carry out the sentences of the P.P.S, ASSASSINATIONS AND LOOTING. To facilitate working, the Socialist Party is divided into three or four great groups. There is the factory group — the most powerful of all; the agrarian group, aiming at landowners and the propsrty of ab6entee proprietors; the nrid-dle-claes group, controlling the fortunes of professional men, students, clerks; the army Rroup, which hitlterto has confined its energies to the filling of tho conscript lists with active Socialists, but which, at the approaching draught in September, will endeavour to prevent the provision of any conscripts whatsoever. Some forty years ago -the attempt was mado in Poland' to avoid payment of taxes for the maintenance of the army. The movement wns crushed by_ the Government billeting largo companies of men on all malcontents, and so taking in kind what the p:opk> refused to tender in mo&ey. The Socialists hope to avoid this discomfiture by securing tho paßsive resistance of ft greater number of taxpayers than thero are eoldiers availalle to quarter upon them. Every branch of the P.P.S. is in active operation. Some- two hundred officials, policemen, and others, from generals of staff to privates, pursuant to the committee's instructions, have been assassinated in Warsaw alone within tho past six months. In the last week a sum of 180,000 roubles belonging to Government waa taken from «v train two- miles out of Warsaw. As no defence was made by tho guards, no lives were exacted. At Herby, however, a couple of days ago, the officials in charge of some 20,000 roubles stood by their guns, with tho result that two generals, two officials, and several common soldiers were killed. A week ago two men walked into a railway office i n Warsaw at noon, called "Hands up!" shot one soldier who resisted, and successfully robbed the cashbox. Post offices all over the country havo been looted, with the consequence that many bavp ceased to engage in any money transaction. Safety banks havo offered rich harvests to the P.P.S., as, tho monoy being guaranteed by Government, depositors do not lose by the transference of funds to tho party's coffers. In Warsaw nlone eomo fifty vodka chops havo been broken into, looted, aaid destroyed. To-dny smother half-dozen wero added to tho list. WHY 'THE TROOPS ARE LOYAL. All this time tho army remains loyal to the Government. The soldiers shoot as uncoprernedly at th,eir fellowa ai> they did at tho Japanese. ' The fact is unpleascnt to tho .Socialists, but tho explanation is ample. Troop.3 levied in th& south or north garrison tho regions of Middle Russia. Troops raised in the districts around Mcecow are quartered at tho pxtremos of the Empire. Those men, consequently, never act in civil war against people known to them, but against tliose who avo of a race as different as though they wero born under a. foreign fir. jr. In and around Warsaw is a vast force of mon gathered to keep the Poles in subjection. They consisj. of one regiment of Cossacks, ono regiment of Circassian Cossacks, one regiment of horse artillery of the Guard, two regiments of cavalryof the Guard, four regiments of infantry of tho Guard, four regiments of infantry of tho line, ono regiment of garrison artillery, two regiments of dragoons of tho line, two regiments of infantry of the line, and ono regiment of Cossacks of tho line. Not on& company of all theso regiments has more in common with tho citizens of Warsaw than would a party of Germans or Austrian?. The Cossacks come from the Urals, the- Don, and tho, | Caucasus. The regiments of the Guard arc all recruited in Middle Russia. Tho j regiments of tbo lino contain detachments from every piit of Russia — except Poland. .Soit is tuat Warsaw is patrolled by troops as alien* to its populace as | would be Prussians from Berlin, or Hungarians from Pesth. My musical Pole long since ceased , his whistling, but the cry to arms rises from every street corner.