IN DENIKIN’S RUSSIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16497, 6 August 1921, Page 16

IN DENIKIN’S RUSSIA.

THE WHITES AND THE REDS. LIFE UNDER THE BOLSHEVIKS. “'Fancy thinking about to-morrowP 'What a strange idea!” So remarked j a Russian writer and revolutionary i named Ouspiensky, apropos of life j under Bolshevik rule, to Mr C. E. Bechhofer, the author of “ In Denikin’s | Russia.” Mr Bechhofer went to RusI sia as a free-lance journalist in the • winter of 1919 to fiee for himself what ! was really happening, and after readj ing his able book one can appreciate I the aptness of Mr Ouspiensky’s rc- | mark. Mr Bechhofer had been ir , Russia previously. I have recently read several admirable books on 801-I -I shevik Russia (says a writer in “ John ! o’ London Weekly ”), but not one has j made a deeper impression than this | one. He gives what reads like an I impartial account of life under both | the Reds and the Whites. CRACKING NUTS. Quite early in his pages I came across the following in an account of the early days of the Red Terror: ‘ ; Less fortunate officers were dragged by die mob to the old naval officers' mess at Sevastopol; there their beads were held on the top of a grand piano and the heavy lid slammed down upon them. This the mob called ‘cracking nuts.’ ” i “TIPPERARY’S” SONG COMPANION. An experience' during a journey through Georgia, in a Tiflis restaurant- : “ We made our wav to tho restaurant, whence the noise came, and discovered fifty to sixty Georgian men of all classes, ages and appearance, sitting round a long table that was covered with plates and bottles. « We were noticed; and, my friend being in uniform, the orchestra was silenced and tho piano played the inevitable 4 Tipperary,’ which does duty m these parts as the British National Anthem, followed by its usual aci companiment. ‘ Who "Were You With ! Last Night?’ (I suspect that a copy of ■ Tipperary ’ reached Tiflis with the j other song, which also was popular at j the outbreak of the war, printed on ; the hack. Ever smeo, the two have been indivisible in the Transcaucasus.)” THE CZAR “ SAFE IN ENGLAND.” j The following is ono of the most ■ stinking accounts I have read of the mentality of the Russian under Boli shevism. The writer talked to a cabdriver at Novorossisk. It was in the 1 days when Denikin’s array was still lighting: ! “ ‘ Such times,’ he said, *' terrible times. Look at the price that hay ; is!’ 1 444 Was it better when the Bolshevists were here ?’ I asked. '• “ k Ai! No,’ he answered. ■ “ ‘But surely they didn’t do anything to you ?’ I said. I “ 4 No—o, they didn’t do anything |to us. It was bad for the bour-jee-I 00,’ he struggled wit-h the word, e but 1 not for us.’ “ 1 Did they pay you well?’ “ ‘ Yes, sometimes they paid us well, and sometimes they didn’t pay at alb And now it’s just the same*. Some of the officers who ride about here pay us well, and some don’t pay at all—devil take them all.’ 44 ‘So it’s all the same for you, as it was under the Bolshevists or as you “ 4 H’m, no. Tho Bolshevists used to take you and put you up against a wall and shoot you—yes, just say a word, and they put you up againßt. tho wall. Every day I used to see them putting people up against the wall and shooting them—for nothing. Why. onco they even put me up against the wall; but 1 said 4 ‘ Shoot me if you like, but what gpod will it do you? I’ve got nothing in the world except my whip.” And they let me go.’ “ ‘ Well,’ said J. 4 and what is going to happen in the future?’ “ 4 We cannot tell. God alone can know. . . . But I think it will bo worse, yet. You’re an Englishman, aren’t you? Yes? Well, then, send 11s the Czar back! In the old days no one touched what was yours, and you didn’t touch anyone else’s, but now O God!’ (How many times have i heard these identical words repeated by Russian workmen and peasants in the last few months!) ‘ Nicholas is in England; tho people know it. Until we have him back wo shall not have order.’ “ He would not believe that the Czar was dead. He shook his head sagely when T assured him of it. 4 Oh, no*' he said. 4 you have him safe in England ! The people know.’ ” IT WOULD GET WET. A picture of a Russian naval officer —new style:— “I decided to go on board a- Russian merchantman that had been converted into a warship, and to ask them if they would permit me to go- off to tho Cleopatra in one of their boats. The officer on duty, a pleasant youth, waA sympathetic, and called up the chief officer to see me. This was an amazing individual, who was dressed and behaved like a stage villain, and whose strut would have delighted an English music-hall audience. He was dressed half as a soldier and half as a sailor; a long black moustache curled across his cheeks. He told me peremptorily that his boat would get wet if he put it into the water, and sent off a sailor with me to find the port commandant* „ A J l3

GRUESOME HUMOUR. The terrible conditions at Novorossisk aroused the gruesome humour of a local paper, which printed what the editor called an up-to-date “ New French Course.” Hero is an extract: — “ Q. —* Is it true that your uncle i* a remarkable man?’ “ A.—‘ Yes, he is, indeed, a remarkable man. Ho has hern ill once with ordinary typhus, twice with spotted typhus, and three times with recurrent typhus. He is impatiently waiting for the spring, in order to fall ill with oholera.’ “Q. — 4 Do you like walking in the cemetery ? ’ ec A.— 4 Yes, I like walking in the cemetery, because all my friends and acquaintances are there. The day before yesterday my last friend in the town died. In order not to have to visit the cemetery every day, and so wear out my last pair of boots, C want to remove my residence to the sexton’s quarters.’ ” WHAT TWO SUBALTERNS DID. Two young British subalterns and half a dozen Sepoys actually “confined to barracks” a Georgian “army of liberation” which cam© to the Batum province, then occupied by British troops : 44 Soon they went outside, and discovered a Georgian force of some threehundred men drawn up in battle order. Thero was a front line, lying flat all round the bungalow, then a reserve lino, machine-guns, and so on, and, at tho back, the stretcher-bearers. Tho subalterns stepped through this martial array and ordered the Georgian officer to house his troops in some empty buildings a little farther up the hillside. The Georgians, bewildered at their reception, retired into the houses, and the British subalterns issued orders that they were to stay there .and not to come outside. The Punjabis were posted as sentries over them. At this point the Georgian commander, who. in expectation of a scrap, bad taken up a strategical jiosition some miles in the rear, arrived and blankly acquiesced in the arrangements.”