"RED BILLOW OF BLOOD."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 30 September 1918, Page 8

"RED BILLOW OF BLOOD."

GERMAN ACCOUNT OF BOLSHEVIK TERROR. ! AS TERRIBLE AS OTHER STORIES MORE EXECUTIONS IN A MONTH. THAN DURING WHOLE FRENCH REVOLUTION. ~ (Received Sept. 30, 9.45 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 28. . The Lokal Anzeiger's Moscow correspondent, telegraphing iin the middle of September, gave a frightful account of the Red Terror. He said: "A red billow; of blood is flowing _rom Moscow over the whole empire. The Bolshevik leaders. declare that the Red Terror will purify the atmosphere, saying that •the executions are nothing compared with the millions sacrificed in the war. During the whole French revolution not sq many aristocrats were executed as were executed in Russia last month with only the faintest show of a trial, the Extraordinary Commission, with branches and sub-branches in the pro-! vinces, ordering executions aa they pleased. The last decree, ordering the seizure and execution of bourgeois© as hostages whenever the counter-revo-lutionaries create a. disturbance, suflt*;pa&sed any previous horrors. "Recent executions include former Minsters, to the Czar-. IM.M. Tsohegiowitoff, Chivostbff, Makarbff, Broto--popoff and many others flaying an important part sin * i_io^ reoeht :'history were brought before the Court, and ordered to reveal all secrete o_ the Czar's government. Afterwards they were dragged from their cells at the dead of night jOonveyed to Petrovsky Park and shot by sailors. Details of these wholesale nocturnal executions are kept' secret.- Thoy take place in a guarded.! square, brilliantly lighted with arc | lamps, where a squad of soldiers is always kept in readiness to receive vie- ' tims from prison. No time is wasted nor pity expended. The majority meet i their death with dignity. Executions in the provinces include numbers of j well-born women and priests. I "The executioners have become victims of the execution habit, like morphia maniacs, eagerly volunteering their services, and unable to sleep unless they have shot someone dead. ..''Several Grand Dukes and members of the Kerensky Cabinet are being j kept.in prison m Moscow, and the Bolsheviki laughingly tell people 'Don't { be impatient;"they are only spared till -a little later.' Relatives of the hostages know nothing of the day or hour °f execution. Wives, mothers, and sweethearts are ignorant of the fate of their loved ones, and go everywhere I seeking tidings. The wholesale terror . has had a bludgeon-like effect, and has so cowed the timorous population that the whole of Moscow could be put to the sword without an insurrection."—l Times. .