LIVING UNDER BOLSHEVIK SUPER-FREEDOM

Evening Star, Issue 16992, 14 March 1919, Page 4

LIVING UNDER BOLSHEVIK SUPER-FREEDOM

To live in Russia while there was a Tsar was to feel, not bo much that one was walking on a Numbering volcano, as to have an uncanny suspicion that all around wore wild, barbaric forces ready to ravage the moment the leash that held them snapped. This has happened, and something of tho result is told by Dir Mewes, of tho staff of the 1./mdon ‘ Daily Mirror,’ os follows;—' I have just arrived in England from Petrograd, where I have been,almost continuously einc© 1914. To come out of Russia iinlo * England today i* to emerge at a hound xri.m tho Muidle Age.-, u. modem times. Freedom has transformed 1 ordinary life in Petrcgrad something in this way: It is a day toward the end of March, 1918, and I am looking from my window into the square below. I sec little groups of soldiers —revolutionary soldiers—stopping tho passers-by. I imagine they are examining their documents. But the first passer-by is removing Iris overcoat. Tho second is sit-ting on the pavement white a soldier gently but firmly removes his boots. A kdv comes round the corner in a fur coat. She is quickly relieved of it. One man in a temper throws all he has in his pockets out on to the- snow. There is o scramble among tho soldiers. It is 8 o’clock, and as I have only just got up I may be dreaming. For corroboration I go to some friends —British officers—staying in tire house. They join me, and wo sec the ‘‘holdup’ - in progress. Suddenly there is a sharp crack. Someone is shooting. The roblicr hand takes to its heels. Tlii-s is tho reign of Freedom. Ho bevies by broad daylight, exorbitant prices, the daily bread allowance a quarter of a pound per person, and a bread mostly straw and water, butter forgotten, i-es-taunanta with meagre dinners at 30 roubles (15dol). Night life (apart from robbing)— there is no.ue. No one dares go out at night. The theatres begin at 5 and end at 7.30. To compensate themselves for the vodka, self-denial ordinance of the beginning, the Red Guards go about on wm-o-gmashing forays in private cellars. They drink what they -can and destroy what they can't drink. I know of women in Petrograd who have covered up their diamonds with little bits of cloth and sown them on to their dresses in the form of rough buttons to preserve them from the common pillage. In tho midst of the miivarsal freedom tho Republicans must, of course, be free to annex whatever they take a fancy to Petrograd is in a state of famine. Tlw only people well fed there arc the swaggering German officers. Often I used to see poor, ragged, half-starved Russian soldiers, who had fought and suffered in the war, slink by one of these overbearing supermen. And the bourgeoisie, the famed, mucli-written-about Intelligentsia,—what docs it think? What is it doing It apparently doesn’t think. And it certainly does nothing. The Russian is half-oriental. Oriental fatalism is in him. To-morrow or next day—who knows?—-the German,will bo hero to rescue us from “ Freedom ’’! The Intelligentsia have developed an Inordinate respect for the German. And meanwhile “We arc not going to continue fighting for British capitalism.” _ A phrase I beard half a dozen tiroes a day at least! While our, dreamers sympathise with them they cpreak thus of us. For tho rest I ask: What have tho Intelligentsia class in Ratsrfadono to prevent their country from being sold body and soul to Germany? Nothing! During five mouths of Bolshevism I have watched the Intelligentsia swallow everything that Lenin, ’Trotsky, and company have cared to give them Their - sado-depos-ts at the ba-nk have been confiscated; many ..-re without money, or means of earning any- Yet with typical Russian apathy they just wait. To-morrow! Perhaps. Or perhaps another day. So it goes on, and our munitions, our guns, our money, our effort, are annihilated—or iia-ssk whore portable, to Germany. Heavy British, gun© were sold to Germany for 200 roubles each. One Russian division sold their artillery to ' the Gormans for 50,000 roubles, and were ! well pleased. Our own guns are now j hammering out men on. the west.