"WHITE RUSSIANS"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 117, 13 November 1929, Page 19

"WHITE RUSSIANS"

ANTI-BOLSHEVIST ARMY

THEIR ROLE IN CHINA

MENACE TO THE EEDS

In the clash between Eussia and China, engendered by the Chinese seizure of the Chinese Eastern Eailway, the White Russians have loomed large. There have been intimations that roving bands of them have crossed the frontier and provoked the Red Russian detachments. Whether the Chinese, with one eye slyly closed and an inscrutable smile, have given the Whites a free hand ia less certain. What is certain is that the Soviet Government in Moscow has demanded that the Chinese immediately disarm their white allies, says a writer in the ''New York Times."

The "White Eussians" arc politically opposed to Bolshevism and favour the restoration of the Monarchy; they are not to be confused with the White Bussians of racial stock who inhabit an area roughly in the west of European Eussia in the vicinity of Lithuania and Poland. They are the remnants of the white army which fought the Bolsheviki after the Armistice, and have made their way to China, living there in a state of semi-independence. ' .Most of them do hot belong to that more select coterie of exiles which is to be seen at Shanghai, Hongkong, Tientsin, and even Pekin. LIVE BY THEIK WITS. They are not all' officers of the erstwhile Imperial forces; most of them are from the.rank and file and have joined first pne Chinese war lord and then another, li'ying mostly by their wits. Because they have been useful, because they are ever ready to fight, it is alleged that the Chinese Government has-let them alone. As a matter of fact, even the power of a unified Chinese Government does not extend to the vast. territories of Mongolia and Northern .. Manchuria; Their modus operandi has .been .possible, it. seems, because they have been extremely adroit, in playing off one -\yar lord against another.' :•:■••• ' :.

In the early days of the White movement against the Bolsheviki the Whites were rather popular with' the mass of. the Russian rural population. But-when it was found that a White victory usually meant the return of the former landlords and the reinstitution of virtual bondage and thoroughgoing abuses of personal liberty, a change of hekrt took place and the Whites were even more cordially despised than the Reds.

After the defeat of Deniken, Wrangel, Yudenitch,. Kolehak, ana the rest, Russia was' for some time molested by the depredations of the so-called White Guards. These were usually small bodies of men commanded by former Imperial officers and they lived as best they could off..the. countryside, often taking what they wanted by force, according to some accounts. At first they were not necessarily reactionary and a more politic attitude toward them on the part of the Moscow authorities might have prevented some of them from swinging to being uncompromising Monarchists. . THEIR EXIT FROM RUSSIA. The Bolsheviki wages a relentless war upon the White Guards, and the peasants, tired of continual struggles in which they usually had most to lose and having enough troubles of their own, eventually lost all sympathy with the Whites. Unable to exist in Russia, the Guards crossed the frontiers in various places and there pursued a policy of watchful waiting. One of the most fertile places for them to hatch their plots is Inner Mongolia. Although there is no direct and reliable evidence that these Whites are! m any way. subsidised by the various White organisations scattered to the four ; corners of Europe, there are grounds for. supposing that, some sort of liaison exists between the heads of the Monarchist Group, formerly under tho control, of. Grand .Buke Nicholas and since his death chiefly commanded by the Grand Buke Cyril, and the various ou.tposts of..Monarchism.-

to some observers, the Whites, who have not been slow to projects themselves into tho dispute between China and Soviet Eussia, are subtly aiming to cause the overthrow of the Bolshevist regime from the outsider It is argued by these authorities, that 'if tho • Beds are clrawn into a prolonged struggle' in Asia, far away from . their- military base and depending ..solely on the Trans-Siberian Eailway, a single-track road over much of it's*length, they will face sure defeat. - This, however, presupposes, a united China, and a united Qhina is far from a reality, as recent dispatches indicate. FLAYING THEIR OWN GAME. The plans 'of the' 'whites are said ™ w * ISSl SS- St ma- with the power at their 'command-an assistance they .have-offered over-zealously. As they see. it, a defeat of tW Beds will weaken their - -military hoia in Russia, cause the fall of the dictatorship and leave the way open for the return O f the Monarchists. ■ It seenur more certain that the Whites, exiles, from the native land ncr which! "** T*' game in a ™£ KMf £■££■*. what «- White