THE REVOLT IN RUSSIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13946, 1 January 1906, Page 7

THE REVOLT IN RUSSIA.

THE MOSCOW RISING ENDED. DESPERATE RIGHTING. TROUBLES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. REFUGEES IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA. THE RAILWAY STRIKES. United Press Association —By Eleotria Telegraph.—Copyright. ST PETERSBURG, December 2&. The rebels raided the treasury at Wysokil Mazowiecke, in th© government of Loinza, dynamited the safe, capturing three hundred thousand paper roubles, twenty thousand roubles in gold, and a hundred and sixty thousand in silvern Th© raiders escaped. Reports from Moscow show a better tone. , Largely owing to arrests and fatalities ' amongst .the revolutionary leaders, the revolutionists announce a day’s armistice. A thousand unidentified corpses hava been collected in the Lutchoff quarter. The revolutionists in tho Pryessnya quarter offer to surrender on condition that they will not be punished. The troops have an unstinted supply of vodka. The Governor ordered them to fire on "all knots of pedestrians and • volunteer red cross detachments. A number of sappers deserted and helped in the building of the barricades. The crisis in the Baltic provinces led to a sharp exchange of notes between Germany and Russia. Severe fighting is proceeding at Rostoff and Vilna, and hundreds hav© been killed. RUSSIAN REFUGEES. A QUARTER OF A MILLION IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA. MANY DESTITUTE. ST PETERSBURG, December 29. Th© blowing up of a bridge and other damage stopped the St Petersburg reinforcements from reaching Moscow. There are two hundred thousand Russian refugees, many of whom are destitute, in Germany, and sixty thousand Russian Jews, including twenty, thousand children, in Austria. THE RISING AT RBVAL. A GENERAL CAPTURED. ST PETERSBURG, December 29. A force of insurgents at Reval cap tured General Staekelberg, who ha/ been sent to operate against them. END OF THE MOSCOW REVOLT. REVOLUTIONARIES SHORT OF ARMS. RAILWAY STRIKES IN POLAND. (Received December 31, 4.45 p.m.) , ST PETERSBURG, December 30. The insurgents in Livonia burnt • castle belonging to a well-known singer, Alice Barbi, otherwise Baroness lyoffstomersee, who escaped. A fierce cannonade preceded the armistice in Moscow. The resistance waa equally vigorous. The revolution has now ended owing to a deficiency of arms. Two hundred houses were badly damaged. The public were forbidden on Thursday to assist wounded insurgents. The Governor warned a landlord wishing to transform his hotel into a hospital that the hotel would be bombarded if he persisted. Tho Semenoffsky regiment and a brigade of artillery arrived before the railway was damaged. The revolutionaries at Zlatoust declared a republic, and the red flag is flying from the fort and arms factory. The authorities of a neighbour- , ing village threatened to send Cossacks, but were prevented by a threat by tho revolutionaries to kill all the officials of the factory. The latter and th© chief factory inspector for th© district were arrested as hostages. | The strikers at Waisaw hampering it caused the abandonment of traffic on the Vienna railway. Sappers maintain traffic on tho Vistula railway. Infantry destroyed the barricades in three Warsaw streets. THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA. TRANSFORMATION IN THE CAPITAL. A EjAPID AND BEWILDERING CHANGE. Writing on November 15 tho St Petersburg correspondent of the “ New York Herald ” gives an interesting picture of the situation in tho capital. “All here,” ho says, “is a dream. Russia of to-day is entirely unlike the Russia of a few weeks ago. This rapid change is bewildering. , I pick up a newspaper at hazard. It contains a terribly insulting personal attack on the whilom dread General' Trepoff. It grinds him to dust in tho street.. Newspapers appear, so to speak, at every corner. ‘ Buy the Voice of the People!’ yells one leather-lunged youth. “ First number of New Life!’ echoes another. 1 buy ‘ New Life.’ It represents the working man. In bold black typo is the announcement:—‘ According, to an agreement with the union of th© Press, this paper is published without having been submitted to th© censor. Tho promised enactment giving freedom to th© Press by common consent has taken th© law into its own hands. It defies the censor.’ In a prominent position iu ‘Now Life’ is a warning to workmen not to be led away by lying circulars, and informing them that thee© are published by tho'police to make trouble. SOCIETY IN HIDING. “ Nob a single carriage of any of the members of th© Imperial family is to be

Been. ■ There is not a carriage on the Neva Quay.. I pass the famous fashionable yacht club on Monskaia. In usual-times there would be a crowd of carriages around. There is not one today.- A tall young Grand Duke drives up hurriedly in an unobtrusive light carriage. The coachman is in sombre livery without any sign on it of the rank of his master. His youthful Imperial Highness descends quickly from the vehicle, hastens furtively into the club, and the coachman drives hurriedly away,- evidently so as not to attract attention. The Winter Palace is oqj cupied by that king of democrats, Count Sergius Witte, a man hated by the Emperor, an enemy of. the Grand Dukes. And Countess Witte is there, too, waited on by Imperial servants. He who, until a few weeks ago had been banned from appearing at Court, Count Witte, is virtually in supremo command of this great country. He has shown a taste of his temper by dismissing four peccant governors of provinces in one day, and at his belt hang the political scalps of six Ministers, who fell the same day. TALK OF DISMEMBERMENT. “ In a' talk with a prominent official of the Foreign Office, he speaks with interest upon the possible necessity of a dismemberment of the Empire—Finland for the Finns, Poland for the Poles, the Caucasus for the Caucasians. I’ meet a military officer.- He-is quite ready to discuss the question of lack of loyalty in the army. He admits there are grave doubts concerning the infantry, but he thinks the cavalry is ‘ all right.’ He is confident the guards will not revolt; he is one of them. My isvostchik, or drcchky driver, is no longer the humble individual he was _ some weeks ago. As he passes a policeman he calls that functionary an ugly name, find the policeman says never a word. The ‘Union of Unions,’ a new and admirably organised combination of the labour interests of the Empire, publishes daily its decisions upon questions of political interest of the moment. COUNT WITTE’S RULER. “ Count Witte is popularly supposed to be in supreme command of everything. True, he rules nearly supreme. But in his Turn he is ruled by the Union of Unions. He, the man of the small, cold grey eyes and the iron will, fears that association. It- can-, if it wishes, destroy him and all his efforts by a word. Will it give him time? ‘ Yes,’ replies the Union of Unions, ‘ hut you must dismiss General Trepoff.’ Curiously enough, and it is not- gener- ; ally known. Count Witte liked General Trepoff and found in. him a supporter. But he had to dismiss him, for the Union of Unions so willed it. And it has money, that Union of Unions, a great-deal, people say. . It has assessed banks and business houses, each according to its means, and very few indeed have thought it prudent to -refuse _ to give the sums asked for. My bankers i are assessed at 2000 roubles (£200), and ‘ paid smilingly. A small business house I know of paid 25 roubles (£2 12s), and Bo on. TIME FOR PATIENCE. “ ‘ If Russia is to be saved from the terrors of general anarchy people must have patience.’ Such is the cry of Count Witte at this great moment of trial,, the greatest in the history of this country. The terrifying truth is that at the present moment only ai slender tnread stands between renovated, -reconstructed, liberated 1 Russia and anarchy let loose throughout this ill-starred country on a scale that the world has never known. That thread is held in the, hands, of Count Sergius Witte. Should it snap, .desolation, disorder, bloodshed, and even civil war fire sure to follow. Count Witte makes an urgent, almost piteous appeal to the people, asking them to be patient. . In the meantime, as half the Ministers have resigned and the new ones are not yet installed, the future Premier is carrying on the government of all the Russias with his own bands and on his own responsibility. DIFFICULTIES OF THE SITUATION “ The difficulties Count Witte has to face are almost endless. If he overcomes them and succeeds he will stamp liimself as one of the greatest men of the century. He has against him the court, a powerful bureaucracy, the army, the reactionary party, and the anarchists. With him are the Liberals' and intelligent classes, and a very fickle, impatient and suspicious public. One of the great troubles of the situation is that the Russian people have grown accustomed to the idea that the law can he changed by a sweep of the pen. They forget that such action is possible under an autocracy, but not with a constitutional government. They have been so often deceived by unfulfilled promises that they have grown intensely suspicions;' They insist- quite unjustly that. the word should be followed by the immediate deed. That is impossible. , COUNT WITTE’S POLICY. “ But Count Witte knows full well the value of time. He is hastening. The race is a hard one, and the threats of, the revolutionaries are heard aloud. The. new Ministry consists of men .whose sincerity and Liberalism there can be no doubt. Count- Witte himself holds no special portfolio. There are those who profess doubt of his sincerity. I have constantly talked with him in regal’d to the state of Russia. The last time I saw him he said, with emphasis : ‘Russia is in a most: dangerous position. The only thing that can save her is. a complete overhauling, a thorough change of her administrative methods,, and if it is not done soon it will be too late. The man who undertakes it must have quite special powers.’ Count ; Witte to-day has these powers. His Bincerity to my mind is unimpeachable. WILL SWEEP AWAY BUREAUCRACY. “He hates the bureaucrats as the curse of his country. He will sweep their power away relentlessly. He knows all their tricks and how to counteract them and will eitjoy doing eo. He has the fullest faith in his own powers. His only arid his supreme doubt lies in the question as to whether the people will give him time. With much naivete some newspaper correspondents announce that Count Witte talks in pessimistic tones concerning the task before him, of the great and almost insurmountable difficulties that face him, hut to anyone who knows Count Witte it would be surprising if that statesman talked other-wise. At heart Count Witte is perfectly confident in himself and his ability to carry out the task which he has undertaken and upon which his entire future—still more, his reputation in the history of his country—depends. In talking pessimistically, as he does, he is like the astute medical man who makes- the worst of a case he is called m to treat in order that afterwards he may have the credit tor having effected a very wonderful cure.”