Russia

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 28, 28 December 1917, Page 5

Russia

REVOLUTIONARY PROPAGANDA. MUNICIPAL WORKERS’ UNREST. FAMINE THREATENED. PresJ Association—Copyright, Australia! and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received 8.40 a.m.) Petrograd, December 27. The Council of Commissaries lias assigned two million roubles for a re evolutionary propaganda in foreign countries. The municipal employees at Petrograd are calling a strike embracing the hospital. The water-supply and food' situation in the city is worse. Famine threatens in a week’s time. HUN IMPUDENCE INCREASES. BLUFFING HARD FOR PEACE. LUDICROUS REQUESTS. Press Association—Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cable Association (Received 9.50 a.m.) Copenhagen, Dee. 27. • Official advices from Vienna show that the Central Powers join Russia condemning the continuation of the war, the sole object whereof is conquest. They solemnly declare they are willing to sign peace with all the belligerents, but demand that all must accept the principles of “ no annexations and no indemnities.” They require a Russian guarantee that all the Russian Allies will adopt those principles. The Russian proposal concerning the, peoples deciding their own national grouping was rejected so far as the peoples of the Central Powers are concerned, as the matter cannot be settled internationally but independently by each State and people.

PRISONERS DEMAND ACCEPTANCE OF RUSSIAN TERMS.

Press Association—Copyright, Austra

lian and N.Z. Cable Association (Received 8.-50 a.in.) Pctrogntd, Dec. '27

A committee representing several hundred thousand Austro-Gennan prisoners passed a resolution at Petrograd demanding acceptance by Germany of Russia’s “ democratic peace terras,” otherwise they will declare war on the Austro-German imperialists and join the Russians, in order to enforce democratic terras and urge the Austro-Gennan soldiers in the trenches to surrender.

AN UP-TO-DATE GUILLOTINE.

500 VICTIMS AT ONCE.

(Received 10.50 ii.ni.) Petrograd, December 27. An engineer has submitted to the People’s Commissaries a perfected guillotine, which is electrically-worked and capable o fdecapitating live hundred victims simultaneously. GENERAL ITEMS. Press Association —Copyright, Australian and N.Z. Cable Association, Loudon, December 27.

Trotsky has ordered the immediate arrest of the persons who invited Chinese troops to enter Harbin. The Germans have asked the Leninites to postpone the peace negotiations until January 24. It is generally expected that the Germans at Brest Litovsk will absolutely refuse to discuss a general peace, and that negotiations will thus quickly brei’k off. The Austre-Germans concentrated huge forces on the south-western front. The German commanders have

confiscated festive issues of the news'

paper Torch, which the Commissaries arc distributing among the German troops. The commanders decline to allow such an agitation among their armies.

Dr. Williams, telegraphing from Petrograd on December 21, states that the People’s Commissaries are forming a new calendar, abolishing Christmas and Easter and the Gregorian calendar. The new system will he introduced on January (!. Thousands of former officers, who have been degraded from the army, have formed a working union for unloading trucks at railway stations. They are earning 20 roubles daily. The Government, evicted the civil servants who were striking against Leninism from official quarters, and is arresting the loaders. The suppression of newspapers has put out of work the majority of journalists. An. anny of municipal employees is out of work, and professors. lawyers and notaries are idle, the whole thought-producing system of Russia being in abeyance.

The Russian Consul at Seattle has been advised by cable via India,' that there is an established Russian Government at Voronage, on tire Sea of Atoov. " It is believed the leaders were members of Kerensky’s Provisional Government, who fled from Petrograd.

The German commission provided by the armistice is proceeding to Retrograd to arrange an exchange of civilian and unfit waivjpyisoners and the restoration of Russo-German relations within defined limits.