LIBERATED RUSSIA.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 1053, 27 June 1917, Page 8

LIBERATED RUSSIA.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ABOLISHED. CRIMINALS WHO .APPOINTED THEIR OWN MILITIA. This wonderful new Russian Govd: eminent is declaring the liberated I will of Ihe Russian people in a swift succession of startling edicts. Las! !l >! week the amnesty lor political of(1 i fenders and the reslnration of the s ; Finnish Constitution. Yesterday, a proclamation of the independence of y\ re-united Poland, and to-day die abo- ? 1, lit ion of capital punishment and niiljI | gation of die punishment of crinii- ' i nals. 10 ; Some British readers may think i-! that these sweeping reforms are preie I mature and dangerous, wrote Harold I Williams recently to the "Daily a | Chronicle." They are not in the least, T i They have been the commonplaces n| of Russian progressive thought for ;- years pas!, and what is more they ..are deeply rooted into the Russian ' j character." They are really in the I I j spirit of the great classics of RuslC i sian literature—of Turgenieff, Dos- >_ I loievsky, and Tolstoy. Bold Experiment.

It is right and magnanimous that when the Russian people came io i!s own and had its worst enemies in power, it should abolish capital punishment, and thus put aside temptation to execute those who had wrought such infinite harm and suffering to the nation. It is a bold experiment, of course, and it may he foolish, but then the dangers of the opposite method have been tragically demonstrated, if you go on guillotining and guillotining without end and revolting the world with a reign of terror, you will be confronted with a strong reactionary ami Royalist movement in no time. The new Russian and early Christian method of non-resistance gives you a strong moral authority that disarms opposition. The authority now being rapidly accumulated by the new Russian Government is absolutely distinct in quality from that wielded by the old. It is a moral authority, and makes its appeal in a peculiarly Russian way to the best moral instincts of the people. Mitigated Punishment.

The long edict very considerably mitigating the penalties of various categories of criminals now undergoing punishment is also very characteristic of the lime. Why should | not they share in the general rejoicing? There is a great deal of the I Dostoievsky spirit in the attitude of J the common people to criminals. They call them unfortunates. Prison regime under the old Government I was very brutal. Anyhow, though I Russian human kindness would jcreep in and soften things, and I there were a few model prisons, the behaviour of criminals during the Revolution was disconcerting, to say the least. In Petrograd, when the prisons were broken open, thousands of criminals were released with the politicals; but the amount of harm they did was infinitesimal. Some of them came into a soldiers' soup kitchen one evening, and said, "We are criminals; can we have something to eat?" And they got it. A judge of my acquaintance, after dodging bullets one night, met a wretched, tattered figure standing on the bridge. "You don't know me, sir," whined the figure. "You are Judge So-and-So. I was sentenced ten months ago for stealing, and they have turned me out of the preventive prison. I didn't want-to come out, but they made me. What am I to do now?" Convicts on Parole. A great many criminals have given themselves up of their own accord, and the rest have been rounded up by the militia. Convicts instead of breaking out and wrecking the town immediately elected leaders and established mutual discipline. They let some convicts out on a ,few days' leave on their word of honour that they would return, and then formed a militia of their own f<> keep order in the town, so that none of the inhabitants should say that the convicts had misbehaved." There is a well-known Russian folk-tale retold by Tolstoy about Ivan the Fool, the laughing slock of the household, who in the end alone of all the brothers outwitted the devil by his sheer simplicity. Again and again this astonishing Russian revolution reminds me of Ivan the Fool. No wonder Russians want to come home again from Canada.