RUSSIA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16037, 23 January 1918, Page 3

RUSSIA.

EX-MINISTERS MURDERED. END OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. REIGN OF TERROR IN RUSSIA. (Received Jan. 23, 9.S a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 22. The Petrogvad correspondent of the Daily Chronicle states that M. Shingareff, ex-Minister in the Provisional Government, and M. Ivokoshkin, C adet leader, were murdered on January 20. They came to Petrograd to attend the Constituent Assembly. They were arrested and confined in a fortress. The imprisonment resulted in illness and they wore removed at a friend’s request to the Mario Hospital. They left tho prison at 8 o’clock in the evening and were murdered tho same night. This is 'a very heavy blew to the Cadets. M. Shiugaroft was a thorough democrat, scrupulously honest and single-minded. M. Kokoshkin was a professor of political science and, next to M. MiKukoff, was the leading theorist of the Cadet party. EWnds 'of other imprisoned Ministers continually fear they will he lynched. The, alarm has been raised several times that the Red Guards were demanding that the Ministers bo handed over for summary treatment. MM. Konovaloff and Trotiakoff have been transferred to a hospital, Imt MM. Terestchenko, Kartashen, Bernatzky, Kishkin and Stopanoff ,are still in tho fortress of Peter and Baul. PARLIAMENT A JTETISH. The Constituent Assembly came to a comic end. At five o’clock in tljo morning a sailor mounted tho tribune and demanded that the members disperse as tho guard was tired. M. Chcrnoft replied that the deputies wore tired too, hut must do their duty to the people by carrying the great principle of land nationalisation. Thei sailor insisted, so the deputies hastily passed a batch of resolutions and dispersed. ' t Later the Bolshevik Commissary to the Assembly announced that the Assembly would mot meet again, M. Skvorthoff, the Bolshevik leader, stating that Parliamentary institutions were only a fetish of the bourgeoisie. The Red Guards and sailors continue to patrol Petrograd. Some shooting has occurred, but a very fierce snowstorm is raging. BRUTALITIES AND EXCESSES. The correspondent adds: “I cannot tell all the brutalities and excesses which are ravaging Russia from end to end. Plunder and the cruellest forms of murder aro so common that horrors pall. The tyranny is worse than under Nicholas 11. The Bolsheviks are a warning symbol of the muttering volcanic forces of social upheaval loosened by the war. Their object is to enable the proletariat to capture the accumulated wealth of civilisation.