TERRIBLE HELD OF BOLSHEVISM

Evening Star, Issue 17087, 4 July 1919, Page 6

TERRIBLE HELD OF BOLSHEVISM

LABOB liBADEB'a WARNING. The 'Dairy Express' publishes tho full text of a striking warning against the perils of Bolshevism from Lieutenant-colonel John "Ward, " the navvies' MJ?.,'* one of the most trusted leaders of British Labor, of which mention has been made in cable messages. Colonel Ward- ha* long commanded a Middlesex Labor battalion. He was the hero of the Tyndareus disaster, off the Cape, when he ordered the famous Birkenhead drilL , The letter is addressed to Mr W. A. Appleton, secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions, the text being as follows :

Omsk (Siberia), 29th Nov., 1918. Dear Appleton,—l was delighted to receive your wire. It was like a drain of sweet water to a thirsty man, for here I have been fighting, struggling, working m this illimitable and revolution-torn land without a word from England for nearly four months. Some addle-pated coou still sends all our letters to Hongkong, where the authorities delay them as long a~tney dare. Then a stray ship starts for Vladivostok, and then they go to where I was, but only come as a last resort to the placa where we are now. But "pack all your troubles m your old kit-bag" is the motto for a good soldier : and so we trudge along over these weary wastes until we have arrived at a point nearly 5,000 miles inland from the place where we started. My luck is in; some ink has arrived at last. For the love of Allah, never more talk of- the glories of revolution. lamin it here Friend strikes down him he thmKS his foe, and finds the dead man his brother -Princes, peasants, plutocrats, wortcme», rich and poor, go down together in one welter of blood and dirt. The Bolshevik thinks nothing of standing 500 social revolutionists against the wall and shooting them down before breakfast because of some small, petty difference of opinion as to whether the railways should be national or communal. How the gocis must cry with rage that men can be so However any of our Labor leaders failed to grasp the Bolshevik creed of blood, and presumed to condone the horrors committed by this mob of fanatical maniacs, I cannot imagine. Rather pray Heaven defend our Old Country from such a calamity. . I have entered Ekaterinburg, and neara the Bolshevik shells hurtle overhead. That is war; but, oh! the sight of the Cossacka nulling the lumps of wood up out of tha well, near where the Tsar was impnsoned, with an occasional grand duke mixed up with the timber! Then the end of anotlx&r- poor piece o£ flesix. xecograiseo. a,a % grand duchess; then another as the foreman at the near-by ironworks; and then a few workmen and workwomen, all murdered and mutilated just to prove the love for humanity! I quite believe it was necessary to destroy the old regime, to execute the Tsar and all his minions; but these swine whom we call Bolsheviks are mere bloodthirsty cut-throats, who murder for the love of it, as some of their proclamations show. Their regime has destroyed more peasants and poor people in one year than did the Tsars in a hundred. War is horrible, but revolution is hellish. One other surprising similarity between Tsarism and the Bolshevik—they both tryto destroy the intellectual, elements of their country. They have made a regular onslaught on all the educational institutions in the country. I have so_ far not seen a single educational institution from Vladivostock to Ekaterinburg that has not been the scene of bloody .conflict. Every cadet (i.e., young schoolboys) that the Bolsheviks oould lay their hands on has been killed, even where they were the sons of well-to-do peasants. Sometimes they were lined up and shot in hundreds. In one bath, as at Irkutsk, the oldest was 16. If, appears that the German agents have iokl the poor ignorant Russian workman that the only way in which he can keep the country in his own hand is to destroy every educated man in it. The work is being clone thoroughly wherever the Bolshevik rules. The German idea is that if every intellectual man and boy is killed the conquest of Russia by German kultur is certain. Let us hope that this diabolical boomerang will come home to the inhuman villains who-started it. I see that a General Election is on. I wonder where I come in. It is impossible for mo to move from here now. And what a place! The thermometer registers already 30deg of frost, and it will go to 45. My railway car, which is fixed just outside'my barracks, is quite comfortable; hni ;be white fro«t is a quarter of an inch thick on the inside of the windows, while i,-,--iy ii;;il ana piece of brass, including door handles, are white with our frozen breath. "We have to watch each other bo that we can alarm each pal if we see a white patch appear on his nose or cheek, which means circulation has ceased and the tissues are frozen. This is a place where red noses are at a great premium. But you know the British Tommy. Though we are the only unit here we never say die. We hold the longest front in the world—-5,000 miles—without turning a hair. Only, for Heaven's sake, in your initiations don't let the people forget we are here. "Twould be a good thing for Russia if we were even left here to found a city of our own, but we think a little of ourselves occasionally. And then, what about our dear little old country called England, which, now we are here, seems like- a. sort of heaven on earth, winch we pray to see almost to the exclusion of the other Heaven we used to think about. As for Hell—well, a bit of it is here, but we don't feel any the warmer.