A Short Account of Bolshevism in Russia Issued from HMS Borodina | July 1919

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF BOLSHEVISM IN RUSSIA

The start of the Bolshevik Regime - The reign of terror in Russia commenced with the overthrow of Kerensky's Government by Lenin and Trotsky in November 1917. The former came from Switzerland in a closed car through Germany and was elected President. Trotsky, whose real name is Bronstein, and others were almost without exception Jews, to whom Russia meant nothing.
German Support - To carry out their propaganda, the "Bolos" needed a large sum of money. This was readily supplied by Germany, to whose advantage it was to see Russia disorganised, as she would then become an easy prey for the exploitation of her vast resources.

One of the promises made by the Bolos was the immediate conclusion of peace. The result was the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, by which Russia was deprived of Finland, the Ukraine, all Western and Southern Russian, and by which she had to pay £300,000,000 in gold.

By that time the Russian Army was completely disorganised, which the Germans took advantage of by pushing their line forward to between Narva on the Baltic and Rostoff on the Sea of Azov, and this after the Treaty had been signed.

Great indignation as been felt amongst the true Russians at the signing of the Treaty, and so the Bolo set about the extermination of all educated people in Russia and did it very thoroughly. Wholesale arrests were ordered, thousands of innocent people were thrown into prison and many executed. Officers of the Former Army were proclaimed Outlaws and were to be shot at sight, thereby making murder 'lawful'. Uritzky, a Commisar in Petrograd, appointed by the Central Executive Committee which had fled to Moscow, made himself especially obnoxious and was shot by an officer. As a reprisal, the Bolos arrested 5,000 officers and whilst conveying them in barges to Kronstadt, blew the barges up in the Bay of Petrograd, most of the officers perishing.

Britishers were suspected of aiding the counter-revolutionary party and many were thrown into prison. On 31 August 1918, Captain F.C. Cromie D.S.O., R.N., our Naval Attache, was brutally murdered, and his body mutilated. The British Embassy which he had tried to defend was entered and ransacked and the Staff arrested. The Allies threatened reprisals and the British subjects were eventually released.

Lenin and Trotsky, fearing for their safety, surrounded themselves with Chinese and Lettish Guards, but one day a girl succeeded in firing three shots at Lenin and seriously wounded him. Again thousands of innocent people were shot as a reprisal.

Appeal of help - About this time the Russians appealed to the Entente Powers for help against the Bolshevik Terror.

In the North, with the aid of British, French, and Americans, communications were kept open and food and clothing were supplied to the starving Russians. Archangel was occupied by an Allied Force on 2^nd August 1918, and the Bolos were driven out of the surrounding districts, thus enabling the population to pursue a safe and peaceful existence such as they had not known for many months.

A volunteer Army, mainly consisting of ex-officers, was started by Generals Alexeiff and Korniloff in the South. Their strength at first was only 2,500 men all told, but after successful fighting, many fresh men gathered round them and now the Army, which since the death of both Alexeiff and Korniloff, is under command of General Denikin, numbers now about 300,000 men and is well equipped with guns, ammunition, aeroplanes and tanks which have been supplied by Great Britain. The Volunteer Army has already cleared a large part of South Russian of the Bolos and is continuing to advance rapidly.

In the Ukraine, two armies, at first acting independently, met with considerable success, and having now joined hands, are pressing the Bolos hard. They are nearing Keiff, the last Bolo stronghold in the Ukraine.

From the West, the Poles have cleared the Bolos out of their country and are not working in conjunction with the Esthonians and Russians under General Udenitch. He is now within a few miles of Petrograd, where a severe battle is raging, the Bolo desperately defending the capital, which although it has long ceased to be the site of the Central Executive Committee which has moved to Moscow, is still regarded by the Bolos as a most important city, whose loss would be a great blow to their cause.

All the Commanders of the anti-Bolo armies have recognised Admiral Kolchak as their supreme Commander-in-Chief, who with his Siberian Army from the East is assisting to strangle the Bolos. He is now at Perm.

Situation in 'Soviet' Russia - The situation in Soviet Russia is becoming more and more desperate. The people realise that all the promises with which they have been lured by the Bolos are nothing but empty words. The Bolos confiscated all private estates and crown lands but no system was devised for the division of the land among the peasants, the result being plunder, destruction and indiscriminate land-grabbing, leading to an unequal distribution of land and further conflict between individual villages and peasants.

The workmen got control over the factories but were unable to manage them, owing chiefly to lack of experience and desire on the part of the workmen themselves to work conscientiously, and also to lack of raw material, due to the breakdown of the transport. In spite of large sums of money paid by the Bolo Government in their promissory notes as wages, the factories closed down one after another, thereby throwing the work men aside without any means of support.

The stock of manufactured goods being exhausted, there was nothing left to give the peasants in exchange for their produce, as the latter refused to accept the paper money which had become valueless. Therefore punitive expeditions were organised to extort corn from the peasants, which led to the extension of the Civil War to the rural districts, whereas up then the bloodshed had been almost entirely confined to the Cities where the bourgeoisie had been mercilessly hunted down. Several risings of peasants occurred but were suppressed with unheard of cruelty; whole districts were laid waste and the inhabitants shot regardless of sex and age.

In every town and village, the Central Executive Committee possessed its agent, whose duty it was to report anyone suspected of anti-bolshevik feelings and any such people were immediately arrested and thrown into prison which they seldom left alive, being either shot after a mock trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal or literally starved to death. One member of the Committee, appointed to report on the condition of the prisons, was himself arrested for daring to give a truthful account of the shocking state in which the prisoners existed.

Results. - By means of such terror, the Bolos have been able to keep the whole country subservient to their means. For the male population there is but one thing left - to enlist in the Red Army where they get sufficient food to exist. They are forced to fight for fear of being shot if they refuse to obey. Detachments of Chinese and Letts are kept for this purpose as Punitive Units and Executioners.

Food is very scarce, especially in the towns where the people are starving. As a result of bad feeding, epidemics have broken out; in Petrograd in the early summer there 2000 cases of cholera daily, the great proportion of which were deaths. 

The Bolos have done away with all law and substituted numerous decrees, one of which did away with the Church. Many of the churches were turned into cinemas and music-halls; the priests were persecuted and many murdered. Another decree did away with the marriage ceremony, which now became a simple thing. A man had only to hand a paper to a Commissar stating he wanted a particular woman as his wife, the paper was stamped and the ceremony was complete. The same paper had only to be torn up by the Commissar for the marriage to be annulled.

In certain areas the women were nationalised and any man could take any girl between 18 and 35 as his wife and leave her as soon as he wished. Any woman who refused was shot. Children were to be taken away from their parents and brought up by the state.

Present state of affairs. - The brutal and lawless method of the Bolos have been carried too far and have turned the bulk of the country against them. The men in his armies have been largely mobilised at the point of a pistol, and are peace-loving people who would rejoice at regaining their freedom to carry out their ordinary work as they did before the war.

The Bolo leaders fully realize their precarious position but still cling to their task hoping that a universal revolution will still plunge the world into a state of anarchy and chaos, such as they have done with Russia.

But their hopes are doomed with the steady pressure of all the anti-bolshevik forces by which they are surrounded, and by the desire of the Russian people to overthrow the terrible 'Bolo' rule

"BORODINO"
21 JULY 1919