MARIE SPIRIDONOCA

NZ Truth, Issue 755, 6 December 1919, Page 11

MARIE SPIRIDONOCA

VIOLATES VICTiH OF IYRAHNY

Outraged by C§ssacks: Interned by Bolsheviks

"Upholding Law aad Order" m Russia

The papers Lave recently published statemenas to the effect that Kronstadt has fallen, and that General Yudenitch or Judenitch has entered Petrograd. These statements are, however, made one day and contradicted the next. It ia not easy to get the truth about Russia. It is cabled that the correspondent of the "Times" at Copenhagen pays that the "Bolshevik Minister for War at Petrograd" told Yudenitch that the whole population would tnrn anti-Bol-shevik and that he would siirreua^r, "if the city were not bombarded and it food were supplied." This tate about the readiness of the population of PetrogTad to "turn anti-Bolshevik" may be true; but it is not new and has been contradicted before. It was contradicted by Arthur Ransome m his "Six Weeks m Kussia," which was first published m June of this year. According to Ransome, th« condition of affairs In Petrograd Is that there are "extremists" there who, looking upon the Bolshevik Government as CONSISTING OP "COMPROMISERS," consequently denounce it. The ''extremists" of Russia are known In that country as "Left Social Revolutionists." .Their leader is the famous -woman, Marie Spiridonova. The Bolshevik Government has interned her m what it calls "a home for neurasthenics." Here is what Ransome says about her, and her desire to overturn the Bolshevik Government: — But the Left Social " Revolutionaries lefl by the hysterical but flamingly honest Spiridonova, are alone m having no scruples or hesitation In the matter, the more responsible ■parties fearing the anarchy and conseuqent weakening of the revolution that would result from any Violent change. The Left Social Revolutionaries, 'want something so much like anarchy that they have nothing to fear m a collapse of the present system. They are for a partisan army, not a \regular army. They are against the employment of officers who served tinder the old regime. They are against the employment of responsible technicians and commercial extperts m the factories. They believe that officers and experts alike, being ex-bourgeols, must be enemies of the people, Insidiously engineering reaction. They are opposed to any AGREEMENT "WITH THE at-t.tf^ exactly as they were opposed to any agreement with the Germans. I heard them describe the communists as "the bourgeois gendarmes of the Entente," on the ground that having offered concessions, they would be keeping order m Russia for the benefit of Allied capital. They blew up Mirbach, and would no doubt try to blow up any successors he might have. Not wanting a regular army (a low bourgeois weapon) they would welcome occupation m order that they, with bees m I their bonnets and bombs In their hands, might go about revolting against it. I did not see Spiridonova, because on February 11, the very day when I had an appointment with her, the Communists arrested her, on the ground that her' agitation was dangerous and anarchist In tendency, fomenting discontent without a programme for its satisfaction. Having a great respect for her honesty, they WERE HARD PUT TO IT to know what to do with her, and she was finally sentenced to be sent for a year to a home for neurasthenics, "where she would be able to read and write and recover her normality." That the Communists were right m fearing this agitation was proved by the troubles m Petrograd, : where the workmen m some of the factories struck, and passed Left Social Revolutionary resolutions which, so far from showing that they were awaiting reaction and General Yudenitch, showed simply that they Were discontented and prepared TO MOVE TO THE LEFT. The following account of Marie Spiridonova's career, before the outbreak of the Revolution, is given by Foster Fraser m "Red Russia." He spells her name "Spiridonoff"; but there is much difference of method and practice where non-Russians spell Russian names: — There is a young woman, well reared and refined, named Marie Spiridonoff, m the chill north of Siberia. She belonged, as a great many of the better class and educated young women of Russia belong, to the revolutionary party. Over ardent, but stung by the ill-treatment and misery of those about her, she determined on the removal of a provincial town Governor, whose harshness had brought bitterness and venom into many hearts. She dressed herself as a boy, knotted her hair under a student's cap. She encountered the Governor on the platform of a railway station and shot him dead. So much was recounted m the newspapers at the time. The rest of the story has now to be told. Following the assassination, she was grabbed by the soldiery. In the struggle HER HAIR FELL LOOSE. Instead of being taken m custody, she was seized by the hair and viciously hauled about the platform. The gendarmes took her to the barracks. Oh, a woman dressed as a man; or a man pretending to be a woman? Indentity must be assured. It was dead winter I—and1 — and the cold m Russia not gentle. In a bare, icy barrack room the clothes were torn from her. The officers stood round, wrapped m their heavy coats, and smoking cigarettes. Marie Spiridonoff cowered before their leers, and trembled till her flesh was blue with

the Icy temperature. "Cold, eh? w was the question of ax» officer, who thought it a mighty joke to press the lightened end of his cigarette upon the nipple of her breast. SHE SCREAMED. A splendid joke. To make her squirm and jump and cry out was a pleasantry- They burnt her breasts with their cigarettes. They — they did things with their smouldering cigarettes which no pen could write. The prisoner was sent some distance to be tried. Stark naked she -was put into a freight waggon along with two big, brutal drunken Cossacks to guard her. During the long, cold, and cruel night journey she was subjected to the hellish caresses of those monsters, and to-day is the victim of an awful disease m consequence. One night those officers were shot dead, Her friends had avenged her. Marie Spirldonoff had received her sentence — iaxprteoned tor life la Siberia. But her etory became known;! what she had dared and Vh*t she (had suffered. SHE WAS A HEROINS!. The authorities tried to get her through to Siberia m secret. They failed. Soldiers were employed at the stations to keep back the demon-. strating crowds. The end of the train Journey wa» at Irkutsk, tho commercial capital of Siberia. There are many -railway employees there. They decided ca giving Marie Splridinoff a welcome. < The authorities forbade them and called out the troops. There was the prospect of a riot. Anyway, the ' workmen let it be clearly understood that if they were not allowed to greet the woman they would tear up the railway line. The •ttberitlefl yielded. When the prison train arrived there were thousands of people to cheer. The van m which the young woman travelled was smothered m flowers. Marie Spiridonoff, pale and worn, smiled at the cvatton. Then she sank down, bid her f*c* tn her bands, and wept. She Is now imprisoned tn the wastes of Yakntsh. She haa bidden GOOD-NIGHT TO TH'ffl WOKLD. Already sh« is beginning to Do forgotten. Pot tragedies m Russia press hurriedly on one another m these days. Partly m consequence of the arrest of Marie Spiridonova by the Bolshevik Government (as narrated above by Ransome) a big strike took place at the Putilov and other factories. A mass meeting was held on the 10th or March of this year, at which aer "Immediate release" was demanded. It li alleged m the British White Book that, 1 during March 17 and 18, "a number ox .soldiers and sailors of the Red Army" arrested 800 persons In the workshops and that "suspected ringleaders of the strike and Social Kevolutioniats" were "shot wholesale." Ransom e's book, although of considerable historical value, seems to contain some special pleading. He is evidently much In favor of the Bolshevik "maintenance of law and order." The Left Social Revolutionists accuse the Bolshevik Government of being unfaithful to the Soviet Revolution. It is certain that the Lenin Government is not so "extreme" as some of the "Left Social Revolutionists." More "extreme" than the "Left Social Revolutionists" are the Anarchists, of whom Prince Kropotkin was the principal spokesman. It will be remembered that we quoted, seme months ago, from an article by a traveller In Russia, a Mr. Sayler, who said that there was reason to suspect that the bogus "decree for the nationalisation of women" wag really "faked" by the Bolshevik for the purpose of doing harm to the Anarchists, to whom tha decree was attributed, and who, at that time, were rather powerful and had their own military force of Black Guards. The Bolshevik Government, however; at last tackled the .Anarchists and ( THEIR BLACK GUARDS; and, according to Sayler, lisastrously routed them. Ransome thus gives the Bolshevik official viewpoint as to what happened to the Anarchists m Moscow: — Dserzhinsky . . . gave a short colorless speech of the 'history of the Extraordinary Commission. He referred to the various crises with which it had to deal, beginning with the drunken pogroms m Petrograd, the suppression of the combined an* archists and criminals m Moscow (he mentioned that after that fouf hours' struggle which ended m tht clearing out of the anarchists' strong holds, criminality m Moscow decreased by 80 per cent.), to the days of the Terror when, how here, now there, armed risings against the Soviet were engineered by foreigners and by counter-revolutionists working with them. Fhere is reason to suspect that some Df those who go to Russia, as enthusiastic Bolsheviks are aghast to find ;hemselves regarded as "dangerous exremists" there, and likely to share the !at© of Marie Spiridonova's friends.