WHITE RUSSIANS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIII, Issue 3074, 2 November 1929, Page 3

WHITE RUSSIANS.

THEIR ROLE IN CHINA

MENACE AGAINST THE REftS.

In the clash between Russia and Chipia, engendered by the Chinese seizure of the Chinese Elastern Railway, the White Russians have loomed large, says the New York Times. There have been intimations that roving bands of them have crossed tho frontier and provoked the Red Russian detachments. Whether the Chinese, with one eye slyly closed and an inscrutable smile, have given the Whites a free hand is less certain. What is certain is that the Soviet Government in Moscow has demanded that the Chinese immediately disarm their white allies.

The "White Russians" are politically opposed to Bolshevism and favour the restoration of the monarchy; they are not to be confused with the White Russians of racial stock who inhabit an area roughly in the west of European Russia in *he vicinity of Lithuania and Poland. They are the remnants of the white arms which fought the Bolsheviki after the armistice, and have made their way to China, living there in a state of semiindependence. Most of them do not belong to that more select coterie of exiles which is to be seen at Shanghai, Hongkong, Tientsin, and even in Peking. PROM THE RANK AND FILE. They are not all officers of the erstwhile Imperial forces; must of them are from the rank and file and have joined first one Chinese war lord and then another, living mostly by their wits. Because they have been useful because they are ever ready to fight, it is alleged that the ICfhinese Government has let 'them alone. As a matter of fact, even the power of a unified Chinese Government does not extend to the vast territories of Mongolia and Northern Manchuria. Their modus operandi has been possible, it seems, because they have been extremely adroit in playing off one war lord against another. In the early days of the White movement against the Bolsheviki the Whites were rather popular with the mass of the Russian rural population. But when it was found that a White victory usually meant the return of the former landlords and the reinstitution of virtual bondage and thor-ough-going abuses of personal liberty, * change of heart took place and the Whites were even more cordially despised than the Reds. After the defeat of Denikeh, Wrangel, Yudenitch, Kolchak, and the rest, Russia was for some time molested by the depredations of the so-called White Guards. These were usually small bodies of men commanded by former imiierial officers and they lived as best they could off the count.tryside, often taking what they wanted by force, according 'to some accounts. At firstl they were not necessarily reactionary and a more politic attitude toward them on the part of the Moscow authorities might have prevented some of fthem from swinging to being uncompromising monarchists. A RELENTLESS WAR. The Bolsheviki waged a relentiless war upon the White Guards ,and the peasants, tired of continual struggles in which they usually had most to lose and having enough troubles of their own, eventually lost all sympathy wkth the Whites. Unable to* exist in Russia, the Guards crossed the frontiers in various places and there pursued a policy of watchful waiting. One of the most fertile places tor them to hateh their plots is Inner Mongolia. Although there is no direct and lettable evidence that these Whites are in any way subsidised by the various White organisations scattered to the four corners of Europe, there are grounds for supposing that some sort of liaison exists between the heads of the monarchist group, formerly under the control of Grand Duke Nicholas and since Ins death chiefly commanded by 'the Grand Duke Cyril, and the various outposts of monarcn*Vccord}iug to some observers, the Whites, who have not been slow to project themselves into the dispute between China and Soviet Russia, are subtly aiming to cause the overthrow of the Bolshevist regime from the outside It is argued by these authorities that if the Reds are drawn into a prlonged struggle in Asia, far away from their military base and depending solely on the Trans-Siberian Rai - way a single-track road over much of its length, they will face sure defeat. This, however, presupposes a united China, and a muted China is far from a realty, as recent dispatches indicate. PLANS OF THE WHITES. 'The plans of the Whites are said to be to assist China with all the power at their command —an assistance they have offered over-zealously. As they see itl, a defeat of the Reds will weaken then military hold in European Russia, cause |the fall of the dictatorship and leave the way open for the return of the monarchists . Xt seems more certain that the Whites, exiles from their notive land, are playing their own game in a mauiner which happens to suit Ithe aims and ambitions of some 'local Chinese war lord who may or may not be in league with the Nationalist Government at Nanking. But so inscrutable are the ways of the Chinese that there is no sure way of gauging what "the White Russians are up to.