TRAGEDY OF BOLSHEVISM.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VIII, Issue 218, 16 August 1918, Page 3

TRAGEDY OF BOLSHEVISM.

TERRORISM IN PETROGRAE | The following are extracts from a * letter written last month to a Rus-! sian officer by his mother, who is i resident in Petrograd ; — i So many horrors happen and have , happened here that really one . doesn’t know where to begin. 1 ■ thank God that you and your wife i and children are abroad. My heart is lighter knowing that some of my ‘ children have escaped these terrors. I The peasants, with Bolshevist and ! German leaders, have taken all from ! us. Our agents and servants in the country have barely escaped with their lives. We have been pillaged and robbed of everything. I tried to save some of the horses, but they i hamstrung and then burnt most of them, but your favourite horse G. is alive in their hands. I have sent the last money that I had left in | case I had to escape from P., to pay these people to leave your horse, knowing how hard it would be for you to lose him. We are now without a penny. j Food is nearly impossible to be ; found. So we starve. One can buy i a few things at mad prices, which; we can’t afford. In the streets they ■ rob, undress and kill people, so it i is terrifying to go out. j Your two youngest brothers (oui | cers) came back from the front tn 1 are here with their wives. Your; sister M. went through a terrifying time in K. The Bolshevists came into her house, tied her to her bed, and robbed her of everything. Tney would have killed her but her little! daughter ran and brought hcipi in time. Your brother A. was com manding a brigade near Y. He tried till the last to make his soldiers fight, but he could do nothing against the Bolshevist influence, ami was taken prisoner by the Germans. It is two months since I had any news of him. Your brother D. was at S. during all the terrible massacre of naval officers, but, thank God, I had a few lines from him the other day, and he is still alive. ' Where your father is I don’t know —they say at C. We live here on the money we receive from the sale of our household things. Otherwise, we would I long since be dead of hunger. I rom the banks no one can get any money, so God knows what future awaits i You can understand that all this 1 has a very bad effect on me in my ’ old age. ’ I go out very little now, ! and in the trams the Bolshevists are i very rough and rude, and walking tires ve too much. I am so sorry, imy dear boy, that I can send yon I no money, but I have none myself. Describing in these few words our difficult life, I must still say we I don’t lose heart. We hope m God ■ and believe he won’t abandon us. He will save us. I thank God for the faith He has given us. He is our only consolation these ternble days. God help us all send us calm—and save us and our country from our internal enemies. Poor Russia!