SLAV PRISONERS OPPOSE BOLSHEVIKS IN SIBERIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16876, 14 June 1918, Page 5

SLAV PRISONERS OPPOSE BOLSHEVIKS IN SIBERIA.

BITTER ANIMOSITY TO GERMANS AND MAGYARS. Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. LONDON. June 12. Delayed Russian messages indicate fierce fighting in different parts of Siberia and European Russia between Czecho-Slovaks and Bolsheviks. The former, although prisoners of war, are bitterly hostile to the Central Powers, but it is impossible to gauge the full significance of the encounters. German and Magyar prisoners assisted tiie Bolsheviks at Pensa, on the Moscow-Siberia railway, 220 miles westward of Samara, which another Czech force is threatening. The Czechs captured Pensa and subsequently gave up their prisoners, except the Germans and Magyars, whom 'hey intend to shoot. It is reported that a force of 15,000 Czecho-Slovaks has cut the railway line in the Southern Urals. Similar insurrections are occurring in many Siberian towns between rival bands of rel-ased prisoners. Tokio advices report that the trans-Siberian cable has broken down west and also east nf Irl ufcsk. The Stockholm correspondent of the Morning Post reports that Petrograd is in a ptate of turmoil. The Soviet is only rnpported by a dwindling number of Lettish soldiers. The population >.s dying of hunger, and smallpox and typhus ere raging. The Frankfort Gazette admits that the internal situation in the Ukraine is difficult. The Government is disliked by all classes, and every viJVtf'_ is under milir.*rs '.'■■.rifcrol for the purpose of confiscating corn. The country is ■without coal, and there arc 1.600,°01 unemployed in Odessa, Kir.?", i-/kitorinoslav, and other '■■ • as- 1 . tV-U-r ( Rec v.-- - 5 >.n- ' '"EKIN, -Tune 12. General Semenoff, the Cost*'-*. deader, report? t v at the Austriaria and Germans have been threatening his communications since he retired. He reports the capture of Ourke, north-east of Borzia.