RUSSIAN BLUEBEARD

Evening Star, Issue 20130, 21 March 1929, Page 8

RUSSIAN BLUEBEARD

HUSBAND OF 150 WIVES The. Soviet- official Schwarz, who lias just been put upon trial at Moscow lor matrimonial frauds, appears to have earned n unique place m history. Lven the clastic Soviet conception of matrimony has not been able to tolerate Ins behaviour towards most ot his LjO wives (writes the Vienna correspondent of the London ‘ Daily Mail ’). Nearly all of them have been formally divorced by him, in most cases without their knowledge. He seems to have neglected statesmanship for polygamy. He was one of that little party, which included Lenin and Trotsky, 'brought by Lndendorfi in a, sealed railway coach from Switzerland to Russia in 11)17 to stir np revolution there. Directly the infamous Check a was established he used his association with it to terrorise beautiful young women of aristocratic birth into" a ceremony of marriage. As the alternative was arrest, followed almost certainly by torture and death, they usually consented. _ Re obtained from them all information possible about the properly of their reinlivc j Sj insisted upon their giving him nil that was under their own control, and then deserted them, obtaining forma certificates ot divorce when he hud time. . According to accounts winch haie reached Russians in Vienna Ins iccoid achievement was marrying six different women ;n one dav, in six townships a few miles apart. He is saio jo have accumulated a fortune ot a million dollars, safely invested abroad (as he thought.L this being itself a capital crime in Soviet estimation. At the first hearing in Moscow fortysix women appeared to claim orders loi the maintenance ot children oi whom thev declared him to no the lather. lii Schwarz's sinnptnoudvy tarnished rooms in Moscow' was found, in a secret drawer in a writing desk, that had once- belonged to a grand duke, a hide memorandum book, containing names and a few leading particulars, such ns dates of marriage and divorce of all Ids lot) wives, in chronological _ order. Schwarz is of by no means fascinating appearance or manners.