RED FRENZY

Hokitika Guardian, 10 August 1928, Page 4

RED FRENZY

THETERRIBLE STORY OF RUSSIA.

TOLD BY A RUSSIAN SOLDIER

“An almost unbearably painful account” Is how the “ Sydney Morning Herald'' describes the story of the Russian revolution, as revealed by a distinguished -Russian soldier in his recently published book “ From Double Eagle to Red Flag.” We give below the Sydney paper’s review. The Russian Revolution was remote j from us in Australia. We read of the i atrocities and the wholesale slaughter, | and shuddered. Nevertheless, these things might liavg happened in another world; they seemed in some ways almost as distant from us as the French Revolution. But we did not realise a tithe of the horrors which were the daily commonplaces of life in stricken Russia. The French Revolution with all its excesses its “ no.vades,” its crowded tumbrils, and its never-idlc guillotin was a comparatively bloodless affair beside the red frenzy of the Russian Revolution. Professor Gilbert Murray has described a force which he terms “Satanism,” a sinister, malignant spirit, which, out of sheer devilish perversity would destroy all that is good, all that is beautiful, all that men reverence, and all that sweetens existence. Satanism was supreme in Russia during those years of terror. An almost unbearably painful account of the revolution is given by General P. N. Krnssnoff in “ From Double Eagle to Red Flag.” The author, a Don Cossack by birth, had a distinguished record in the aiml. He served in a Guard Cossack regiment at Pctrograd, and during the war commanded a brigade on the Eastern front. He was an eye-witness of the incidents which he relates, and perhaps numbed by the ghastly expel icncc, writes with a curious detachment. He merely set down the facts " thont. comment or criticism. It is not surprising to learn from the preface that his book has “provoked indignation in certain quarters.” When men deliberately descend beneath the level of beasts the story of their doings is not likely to present them in a favourable light. REVOLUTION INEVITABLE;

General Krassnoff makes it clear tli it a revolution —although not neccssaril.: one on these lines —was nievit- j ahh/ The fabric of the empire was rotten. The expression “Tsar of all | the Kussias” is proverbially associated with the possession of absolute power, yet Nicholas 11. was a cipher. A wellmeaning, but ineffectual man, he too weak to assert himself. He was surrounded by unscrupulous Ministers, who kept him in ignorance of affairs and pursued their own selfish ends. The aristocracy was pleasure-loving and blind to its responsibilities. Corruption and oppression were rife, Russia was fertile soil for the revol.r.ionarv. No revolution ever succeeds with-• out preparation, and the anarchists took long views. They sedulously sewed the seed, training even little children in the practice of cruelty. All instance is given. The nine-year-old son of one of the leaders was in the habit ( of cutting kittens to pieces with his: penknife and picking out their < ves. His father only laughed at these exhibitions of sadism. “ Tot him get used to the sight of ldood,” he would remark. Thus were recruits to the movement equipped for the work that lay before them. Shortly after the outbreak of the war the Bolsheviks judged tliat the time bad come to put into operation the initial part of their scheme, the opening gambit of the revolution, namely, llic demoralisation of the army. The programme was thus defined by one of their spokesmen: “The educated classes . . . are a herd of cowardly sheep, and it will suffice to scatter them in the ranks of the nrmv to see it decomposed by them as by a noxious microbe. Make a laughingstock of the officers in whatever way you choose . . . so that the rank ol general shall seem a disgrace and that of a soldier, honour. ’Play upon the public admiration of the soldier’s merits, and gradually form new soldiers with nothing military about them. . . liaise criminals to heroes and get the criminal classes to side with you.” And more to the same pur-

pose. PURPOSELESS VIOLENCE. Tho revolution could have been effected with a minimum of violence. The army was wnr-Wenry. The aristocrats were few in number, and were unorganised. The peasants weio apathetic and the bourgeoisie were spineless—as was proved by the event when they made no attempt to sell their lives dearly, hut allowed themselves to he killed like cattle. Theic was no necessity for_tlie savage massacres. Russia as a whole would have acquiesced in the new regime. But such a quiet readjustment would not have suited the Bolsheviks’ plan. Their object was to create an atmosphere in which nothing was sacred and nothing secure. All institution.-, must go by the hoard. Religion, morality and law must be flouted and held up to derision. To achieve this' aim they did not shrink from the most revolting actions. It requires a strong stomach to read certain chapters in this hook. After victims by the score are murdered by the Chinese executioners, the latter calmly carve up their corpses and the dismembered bodies are fed to the animals in the too by the animals in the Kremlin. A son has his father—a general-shot after subjecting him to fiendish tortures. When the impulse to evil doing becomes jaded, these monsters goad themselves to fresh iniquities with cocaine. Buteven this stimulus fails; they are sated with sin. One of them complains that he has tried everything, tasted everything, and found everything tedious. He yearns for a new sensation. There is no wickedness he Ims not practised. Familiarity with vice in its most loathsome forms has dulled his palate. Even depravity palls. This was the type that brought the “glorious revolution” to pass! General Krassnoff’s book should cure any sane person who feels any sympathy for that revolution or for Communistic ideas. “The Christians, runs a Bolshevik manifesto, “ preach that their lives must be piloted by three virtues, Faith. Hope, and Cliniitv. Charity taking the lead. Our system consists in sowing unbelief, despair, and hate, hate about ‘ all.