THE SOVIET'S CRISIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17594, 6 October 1920, Page 7

THE SOVIET'S CRISIS.

INTERNAL UPHEAVAL. CRY FOR PEACE AND BREAD. GRAVE PEASANT RISINGS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received 7i30 p.m.) A. »ad N.Z. iJONDON, Oct. 4. A correspondent of the Morning Post at Riga states that both the internal and external situation indicates, that the position of the Britishers was never - more precarious. Isvestia, the leading organ of th» Soviet Government,, publishes an article written by Trotsky declaring that the army is weakened, and the people indifferent toward war. Workmen . and peasants must understand that if the army •suffers another serious defeat the position of the Soviet Republic will 4 become catastrophic Radek writes in the same issue blaming the Russian workmen for their disinclination to face the fact that the Republic depends exclusively on its warlike capacities.

Information from other- sources confirms reports of a serious rising of peasants, owing to the Soviet Government's forcible requisitioning of food supplies to enable tile cities, especially Moscow and Petrograd, to live through the winter. The most formidable rising is at Tambov, 300 miles south-east of Moscow, where the peasants cut the railway line to prevent th© arrival of military reinforcements. Other serious risings have occurred in the Sataroff and Smolensk districts. Soldiers are deserting and joining the peasants for food. The ■ Soviet Government's! difficulties in obtaining food supplies is increased 'by the bad harvest and the tendency of peasants to restrict production, as city purchasers have been able to offer only worthless paper money for the surplus. , Disturbances are occurring among the citv -workmen owing to, the food shortage. Workmen at the famous Putiloff munition works- at Pefcrograd, and railwaymen, revolted." Troops and artillery suppressed the revolt. It is reported that while Trctzky was reviewing troops -at Moscow the soldiers broke their Tanks and gathered round him, demanding bread.

THE SPECTRE OP FAMINE. i " ' ' ' :■ '' - %'t WRANGEL'S DEADLY THRUST. United Service. LONDON, jOei." 4. A special correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, who was recently is. Moscow, telegraphs, 'from • Big* of numerous direct reports that ; Bolshevism has reached its most extreme crisis*' The anti-Bolshevik activities in Petrograid,,with the assassination'of. commissaries," reflect the temper" of the country- 1 The ; Polish war, from being at first a popular war in Soviet Russia, has become i unpopular. The people want peace- at airy price. The coming / winter, -with a famine as severe as that of \lß9li hut: on a wider scale, amidst a population exhausted by war and - starvation, threatens > to become a' drsadful horror if General Wrangel succeeds in cuffing of supplies from the (south-east. • Thus the Bolshevik strategy j is to.permit the Polish advance to' spend { itself in -the devastated nqrth, whilst the: Bolsheviks are coDcehfaating their forces against General WrangeL * * -.■:.*■■■ Meanwhile the terror Erected from Moscow is intensified. Much depends on whether the secret police and senior officers of -the \ army, who have t Jong accepted Bolshevik regime,as is. temporary norary Government only, f witt think the time has come tor dislodge it -

DESERTIONS FROM- ARM?.

DRASTIC PENALTiES^WpffIED I A. and N.Z. '* LONDON. Oct.*.

Reports Moscow show that the Soviet Government is thoroughly alarmed at , the increasing desertions from the "Red" army. Drastic measures have been taken to secure the new registration of able-bodied men under dire threat of punishment of those who seek" to evade military service..., . , LIFE UNtfER SOVlETlSftfr.' DISILLUSIONMENT GBOWS. LONDOH, Sept. 23. ■ Authentic sidelights otf life in Russia under Sovietism. are revealed by a leading Bussan surgeon who resided 1 , in Moscow, and whose income was 500,000 roubles monthly, of which, 30,000 was paid by the Soviet for operations in the military hospitals. He desired to resign the hospital work on account of the distance he had to walk to them. Consequently members of the Soviet, saying "Why walk?" presented him with a smart equipage and gave him a coachman. One of the doctor's last restaurant bills -cost 800,000 roubles for four diners. He ultimately determined to quit the country. Easily obtaining a passport on some scientific pretext, he was unable to get his wife's passport. They solved the difficulty by divorce —" the only thing," says the surgeon, " easy to., get in Moscow." It was then a simple matter to find an Austrian war prisoner who for 50,000 roubles undertook a mock marriage, and took the doctor's wife out of the country. The doctor and his wife are now reunited in Berlin.

Herr Dittman, a member of the extreme Left of the German Socialist Party, who recently returned from Russia, gives an informative glimpse of Soviet rule in an article in the Freiheit.

He says: The dictatorship of the Bolsheviks is only possible because of the inertness and ignorance of the Russian people. Organised terror was responsible for 893 victims between June 15 and July 15 in 1920, not counting the people shot by Government orders without a trial. The freedom of the press and public meetings and private freedom have disappeared for other than communists. The elections for the Soviets are made at so-called public meetings, where secret voting is forbidden. Terrorist pressure controls the vote, and inconvenient elections are quashed. Conscription has been reintroduced, and deserters are shot.

Economic life is militarised, and workers are not allowed to strike. If they do so they are sent to concentration camps as " deserters from the labour front."

Workers' councils have long been abolished, the workshops being administered by men appointed from above. The latest official figures showed that the Communist Party has a membership of 604,000, 11 per cent, being workers, 6 per cent, party officials, 27 per cent, soldiers, and 53 per cent. State and municipal officials.

The party is gradually being transformed into an army of bureaucrats directly interested in maintaining the dictatorship on which their existence depends. The people already speak of a new Soviet bourgeoisie. Incapacity, sabotage, and corruption are inseparably connected with this gigantic bureaucratic apparatus. Herr Dittmann's own opinion is that the industrial centres are as far from communism as the peasants, among whom communism does not exist. The German Communist leader, Ruehle, in a speech at Konigstein, said he had returned from Russia most disillusioned, and was in entire pgreement with Herr Dittman with regard to conditions under the Soviet.