RUSSIA IN REVOLT.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15807, 3 May 1919, Page 6

RUSSIA IN REVOLT.

THE PASSING OF BOLSHEVISM. INTERVIEW WITH A RUSSIAN LADY. There landed in Auckland last week by the troopship lonic, a Russian lady who has seen her country in revolt, and lived. She is the daughter of a Russian general of the Imperial Guards (General Tarbeeff), who was stationed at Salonika when the storm burst that swpt away nearly all her friends, and before which she fled. She left Russia in August, 1917, six months after the revolution broke out, and went to France for safety. The only reason that her father escaped being killed, like nearly all the generals of the Guards, was that he was in charge of Salonika. The first days of the revolution, she explained, were very good—some people were killed, but all the people were so proud that the Russian revolution was going to be different from the French revolution, and although many of her personal friends died, yet a riot of blood had not then commenced. In a month Lenin arrived from Switzerland and came through Germany in a train that was, in the picturesque broken English of the visitor, “ a blinded train.” It was thought very strange that he was allowed through, and our Russian visitor explained that the temporary Government did not dare say anything, because they were afraid of the people. “He should not have been let free, this Lenin. Very strange that he could pass across eGrmany. It showed that he was in the pay of Germany.” affirmed the visitor, with marked emphasis. In Petrograd he met many people, who began to follow him and believe in him. In the army, the soldiers who were Bolsheviks, and the officers, who were not, began to fight, as the picturesque Russian idiom expressed it, and many officers were killed. The Bolsheviks stated that they wished the happiness of everybody, but everybody must work, unless very old or ill. For their work they did not get any money, but received paper slips, which they took to stated shops, and received goods in return. There was no money in the Empire. What the real Bolsheviks wanted was a Government like England’s, but the Bolsheviks in power had not this ideal. The Russian visitor affirmed that their present ideal was that “what is yours is mine, but what I have I keep.” Just about a month before leaving the Riviera to accompany her soldier husband to New Zealand, good news had come to the Russian exiles from the warring Empire. An officer who was sent by tbe army of General Denikine, who is fighting against the Bolsheviks, arrived as deputy to the French Government asking for help. He told the French Government that if they would help with men and munitions the Bolsheviks would he defeated in a mouth, but if they would only help with munitions they would be defeated in three months, but even if they did not help at all the Bolsheviks would be defeated in six months, as all the south of Russia .was against them, andthevhad about 100,000 fighting against the Bolshevists. Of these, our visitor affirmed. 00,000 were former officers'. Against this the Bolshevists had n verv hig armv, but it held an element of weakness, because a great manv in its ranks were there through fear of t.kosn in now v ’- and others for food reasmis. The Bolshevik armv got much money, and men who could not see tVlr families starving had ioined for that, reason, hut promptly deserted whenever they came in touch with what our visitor called the real Russian soldiers. Tire peasants were also verv dissatisfied. Before the revolution. General Tarbeeff owned a verv large estate in Middle Russia, where the family passed part of the summer months, but lived chiefly in Petrograd. This the peasants took over, and when this occurred, they acquired a lot of grain and foo-Btußs. This they were forbidden to sell, because Lenin did not want food to reach the cities pud undermine kis power. Some broke the edict and sold, and for this were killed, and dissatisfaction was rife amongst them, but so far fear field them in leash. Our charming Russian visitor only learnt English, last year, and has now married one of the returning soldiers, Mr Onslow Benge, of Wellington, in which eitv she will make ber •home in her adopted country.