RUSSIA'S RED ARMY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 2 May 1922, Page 8

RUSSIA'S RED ARMY.

REVIEWED BY TROTSKY

Soviet Russia on February 23 celebrated the fourth anniversary" of the* creation of the Red Army. Leon Trotsi. . the War Minister, in the red square the Kremlin, reviewed the Moscow g. rison m what was probably the larg . .review since the days of the Emperoi For two hours, infantry, lancers, t sacks, gunners, engineers, motor coi . tanks, and airplanes passed in .' bright sunshine (says an Ameri. . ■ writer). They appeared to be in g^od condition, were well uniformed, and saluted in snappy fashion as they hied past the stand. A little more precision in alignment, gayer uniforms, better horses, and older soldiers, and they might have been the regiments of the Old Guard passing before the Emperor Nicholas. On the other hand they were as different from the tattered Red Army of 1918 as the Concord farmers of 1776 were from General Pershing's picked battalions. Near the reviewing stand were Clara Zetkm, the German Socialist; William L. Haywood, of the American I.W W • Katayama, the Japanese Socialist leader; Bela Kun, and members of the Ihird Internationale. The predominance of Communists among the spectators was the only reminder that it was not a pre-war spectacle. The illusion that it might have been the old Russian Army coming back to life was heightened by the predominance of old regime officers at the heads of companies and the little group of

staff men about Trotsky, most of them bearded generals and colonels of many years' service.

Trotsky wore a gray overcoat of mill tary cut. Plump and smiling, he stood sharply at salute and reviewed the passing soldiers like a general. "Within a year the army will he stronger and more united," he told the troops. "We do not: know what will come in the next few months, bul events will not find us unprepared. Looking west, east, north and south we find the danger is not past, because power in the capitalistic countries is still in the hands of our enemies, who hate us and have not abandoned the idea of crushine* us." s

He promised that the year would be one of education for the army, that not a single soldier would be illiterate by the first of May, when, according to an article by the War Minister which appeared lately in the Pravda, every soldier must take the "red oath" of allegiance to Russia.

Herr Wolcke, German Communist, told the troops that the revolution in Germany was still alive, and the timewas not far distant when the German Red Army would unite with Russia's. Then would come the world revolution. U. Carr, who represented the American. Communists at the All-Russia Communist Conference recently, apologised for the actions of Americans on the Murmansk and Archangel fronts. If they ever were ordered to fight Russia again, he said, the Americans would fight their own Government instead. Writing in the Izvestia concerning the Red Army, General Brussiloff praises the success achieved in reorganising it. He compliments Trotsky as the organiser, and credits the Bolsheviks with having strengthened the national conscience and patriotic spirit of the Russian people.