LIFE IN RUSSIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1924, Page 5

LIFE IN RUSSIA

WARNING TO WORKERS..

Australian and N.Z..Cable Association.!

LONDON, Sept. 8.

The “Daily Chronicle’’ has commenced a series of despatches from a Russian special correspondent, who has spent months in mixing with all classes in Russia. He tells how a handful of men held 140 millions' of people in (ear and subjection. He says: “Russia is the Tibet of Europe. All Russians are strangely sensitive. ‘We are not civilised,’ they keep saying. The worst period was in 1920-21, when a complete stoppage was threatened. There was no regular water supply, and hardly any sanitation. The free ration of the State consisted of worm-eaten herrings and portions of bread doles to last one month. Things are. much better now, though Moscow is still the most expensive pldoe in the world for a foreigner. Hot baths there cost 77-. The hotels are fairly clean and comfortable, but they are run very inefficiently, as the managers are Communists who are chosen for their party loyalty. Everybody wants to live in Moscow. Few remain in the provinces, except from sheer necessity. There were two and a half millions in Moscow before the war. The population of the city has since increased enormously, and the over-crowding is appalling. Five or more people are frequently herded in one room. The shop windows are full of brightly coloured caricatures of religious things. They are revolting to the religious man, but artistic quality is not lacking in these blasphemous productions. The State is all-powerful everywhere. Moscow resembles London as it was during the war. All the hotels and big blocks of buildings are taken by Government Departments. It is a city of bureaucrats.”

suspects Executed.

MQSCOAV, Sept. 9.

Twenty-four of those suspected of he. ng implicated in the anti-Bolshevik revolt in Georgia have been executed.

BANKER’S OPINION OF LOAN.

LONDON, September 9.

• Lord Grenfell, Director of the Bank of England, in a letter to the 1912 Club, condemned the Russian loan on the ground that the larger part of the money would be devoted to Communist propaganda. He concludes: “We would be great fools to lend money to the Soviet Government.”