RUSSIAN ANARCHY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 10086, 27 September 1918, Page 5

RUSSIAN ANARCHY

HORRORS HEAP UPON HORRORS

BRITISH SINGLED OUT FOR WORST TREATMENT.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright Published in "The Timer." LONDON, September 25.

A dispatch dated August 14th has reached London from “The Times” correspondent (Mr Dobson), who has not been heard of for some months and whose present whereabouts and fate is unknown. The belated story vividly depicts the horror and completeness of it tissues anarchy and me temhle plight of the British, Americans ana Trench. But it is reared that the situation, has become greatly worse since, as xvir Dobson states: "During August the Buisueviks were doing everything possiolo to work up the fury ot the moo against tne Allied civilians, whose condition is altogether deplorable. The British are singled out tor the worst treatment. They are disqualified, outlawed, and arrested, and their property and bank-balances are coniisoated, reducing them to absolute penury. Their homes and belongings are searched daily, imprisonment and worse hangs over our heads like the blade of Damocles. "The Bolsheviks’ fanatical hatred of the British is due to the belief that British policy controls the whole war. The official Bolshevik newspapers teem with accounts of general uprisings in India, rebellions in Ireland, strikes in England, and the collapse of the Empire. These papers accuse the Ehglish troops in Russian territory of slaughtering Russians, and looting, ravishing, and robbing. Every wall and housefront in Petrograd is plastered with gigantic mobilisation proclamations calling on the workmen to enlist to save the Republic from British and French rapacity. “Russia is practically cut off from the outer world. Only the Murman line is working, hut the telegraph officials are instructed to refuse British official and private wires. Any civilians who attempt to escape by the Murmansk and Archangel railways are shot or arrested. The British Consuls and staffs in Petrograd and Moscow are in equally perilous condition, and have been warned to be prepared for every emergency. Two hundred British subjects were arrested in Moscow, but were subsequently released. TERRIBLE SITUATION IN PETROGRAD. “The situation in Petrograd is terrible. Anarchy, famine, pestilence, murder, and robbery have become the common terrors of everyday life. Men and women beg and drop dead in the streets from cholera and starvation. The deaths from cholera have reached 900 a day. There is insufficient wood for coffins, and corpses, carted to the cemeteries wrapped in newspapers, lay unburied for days, till the stench was so frightful that the gravediggers refused to go near them. Thereupon the Bolsheviks issued orders for the hated bourgeoise class to dig the graves, and the Red Guards promiscuously commandeered groups in * the streets, marched them to the cemeteries, sur-, rounded by men with fixed bayonets, and compelled them to dig graves and inter the putrefying and naked corpses. “Many doctors, nurses, and sisters succumbed to cholera as medicaments were unobtainable. The lazarettos and hospital wards are in a state of indescribable filth and disorder. The outbreak started through the consumption of halt-rotten fish. “The food situation is increasingly alarming, but the Bolsheviks persuaded their dupes that the increasing shortage was due to £he advance of the British, French, and Czech troops. Domestic animals are disappearing. Dogs die of hunger in the streets, biting the dust and gnawing the kerbstones. -Dead horses found in the streets are chopped up and used for human food. “There is much sporadic and internecine fighting and rioting in the coun. try districts. Recently trucks of dead soldiers killed by peasants were sent to Petrograd by train.” In a brief postscript dated August 30th Mr Dobson savs: “All the British feel great anxiety for their even-, tual fate.” 10,000 CITIZENS SLAUGHTERED IN ONE DAY. Eouter’e Telegrams. (Received September 26, 8.50 p.m.) COPENHAGEN, September 25. Advices from Petrograd state that it is estimated the Bolsheviks killed 10,000 persons in Petrograd in one day. They ordered the execution of seventy-two officers without specifying their names. A number of British and French officers have taken refuge in the American Consulate under Norway’s protection. The Bolsheviks posted guards round the building and demanded the surrender of the officers and Consulate officials, but did not enter the Consulate. THE CONSULAR OFFICERS AT MOSCOW. Austral'*” end N. 7, Cable A-wocietien. WASHINGTON. September 25. The State Department has received advice from Helsingfors that Mr Moore (American Consular Service) has arrived safolv from Moscow. The advices do not mention the French and British Consular officers who were detained at Moscow by the Bolsheviks. LITVINOFF RETURNS TO RUSSIA. Australian and K.Z. Cable Association. (Received September 26, 8.50 p.m.) LONDON, September 25. M. Litvinoff, late Bolshevik Minister in London, accompanied by fiftyfour compatriots, is leaving ■ London for Russia to-night. BRITISH AVIATION REPORT 53 ENEMY AEROPLANES BROUGHT DOWN. An*, and N.Z. Cable Aatm. and Eeuter. (Received September 27, 1.5 a.m.) LONDON, September 26. Sir Douglas Haig’s aviation report states: Our (aviation observers reported much damage to enemy batteries as the result of our artillery fire. Wo dropped 12i tons of bombs on two aerodromes, several railway junctions being also heavily attacked. There is much air fighting. We destroyed thirty-one aeroplanes and drove down twenty-two. Ten British machines are missing. Eight enemy i balloons were destroyed.