Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1924 RED RUSSIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 29 December 1924, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail MONDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1924 RED RUSSIA

TWO powerful books dealing with 801-\ shevik Russia have, been published’ recently and, comments a reviewer, either or both might be-adopted with great benefit, as text-books by those educated idealists who are trilling with Communism as a hobby. Of the two. perhaps the more important is “The White Devil of tho Black Sea,” by Lewis Stanton Palen, who acted as collaborator witff the author of “Beasts, Men, and Gods.” The real name of “The White Devil” is not disclosed, but we are told in the preface that he was an officer of aristocratic birth, who served with great distinction with the Russian army during the war, and who, when the monarchy collapsed, joined tho White, forces. He is now working as a carpenter in Paris, and his wife is earning her living as a masseuse. With great difficulty he was induced to give the story of his adventures, of which Mr Palen is translator and editor. Even the writer of “penny dreadful” fiction would hesitate to ascribe to his hero such experiences as those in which the “White Devil ’ took a personal part and survived. In Moscow, where lie was stirring up trouble in disguise, he fell into the hands of Ms, most relentless enemy, a man lie had formerly attempted over and over again to hunt down and. kill. The. room ill which he was confined overlooked a small

courtyard, where in a few hours he saw man. after man placed against a wall and shot, Then his turn came. There was lio trial, only a brutal jest from Ills .enemy as he was led out into the yard and pushed against a wall —a. volley—and returning consciousness in tho dark of early morning tol<J him that one bullet had grazed his head. The others had missed. Grateful for his reprieve lie crawled to the fence of the deserted yard, and climbed over —into the arms of two Red guards. As the driver of a hire motor ear in Moscow, lie managed to gain the confidence of the heads of the Soviet- Government, who frequently employed hint. Taking advantage <>f the opportunities afforded, with, a few associates, he planned the death of Trotsky, Letiin, and three of the other leaders, and only an untimely rising of some misguided Whites prevented the plot from being carried out ; the drive the leaders were to take was postponed. That nigh” he lay awake m bed in his room opposite the prison, and tried to shut out the screams of the victims (there were many women and children among them) and the sounds of the volleys from the rifles of the butchers, as the Reds avenged the rising. The second book is “The Black Horse," by Boris Savinkoff. and translated from the Russian by -Sir Paul Dukes. Although the story is told as a , novel it, is, in fact, a true recital of the author's' own experiences. Boris Savinkoff was a Liberal before the war, and was Minister for War in Kerensky’s short-lived Government. He was both a writer arid a soldier, and after the revolution, when the Soviet, gamed tho upper hand, and all hope was gone, frankly a bandit at the head of the dwindling remnant of his regiment, and waged savage and incredibly ruthless warfare on the Reds. He haled Whites and Reds alike, and supported the Greens or peasant faction, in which, he believes, lies the hope of Russia. Every restraining influence of humanity and civilisation vanished, and ho tells od cold-brooded and revolting critne as an almost, daily routine. Where the Reds got the upper hand they tortured and butchered with > relentless barbarity all who were even suspected .of aiding the bandits. Tn return the bandits spared neither age nor sex in their atrocious reprisals. In summing up the two hooks a reviewer says they serve as an object lesson on the,- effects of Communistic rule. Civil war is admittedly the most evil of : all,wars, tint it pales into insig ‘ nificanee compared with a class warfare in which a proletariat, hungry for loot, is urged on by crazy idealists and clever criminals, and in which their victims are spurred into madness by hideous erueltv. They are, perhaps, the two most, ‘repulsive books that have been printed in English for many years, lieaide which the report of tho Bryce Commission on the Belgian atrocities is mild, but nevertheless they should be read by every man and woman.