The World. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1912-1921, 1918-07-01
WANT INTERVENTION
NRUSS|AF ROMA AN
OUTSIDE COUNTRY
MIDDLE CLASS ANXIOUS FOR
STRONG ASSISTANCE FROM
SOME SOURCE EVEN
GERMANY.
PROPERTY CLASSES FELT PINCH.
OF STARVATION UNDER PEA
SAINT CONTROL.
THIS FEELING HAS BEEN GREAT
OBSTACLE TO CLEARING UP
OF INTERNAL POLITICS.
(By the Associated Press.)


Vologda, Russia, July If the En-
tente allies will not intervene. let the
Germans come, is the attitude of the
formerly wealthy and middle classes
Of the people of Russia Most Of
ehem here would fankE welcome
foreign intervention.
This feeling has been the greatest
obstacle in any attempt to bring the
Russian internal political revolution
out of the whirlpool of disorder, ac
cording tc information in the foreign
embassies here.
Now that the peasants and work
men are having their innings, the
property classes are beginning to feel
the pinch of denial and even of star
walton experienced by the poorer
classes in Russia for centuries. This
is illustrated by the experience of the
bourgeois" family in whose home
The Associated Press correspondent
lives as paying guest"
Take Away Possessions.
This family once one of the veal
thiest in the Vologda government,
owned thousands of acres of timber
land, several lumber. mills, a dozen
ships, two glass factories and more
than two thousand acres of land
This is what has happened to those
holdings in the past two months:
The lumber land has been declared
government monopoly and confis-
Gated; likewise the shipping. The
glass factories and lumber mills
have been taken over and are operat-
ed by the workmen. The peasants
have taken the land
"A few days ago the city govern
ment (sovieD imposed special tax
on the capitalistic class That family
was assessed $4,000 rubles.
Prices for foodstuffs, when obtain
able, are enormous even when figured
at the present rate of international
exchange-which these Russians don't
get, because their money is old
money, invested or made when the
exchange was two rubles to the dol
lar. Compared with old standards of
prices in Russia, wehre living was
cheap, the prices now are almost I'M
believaIble
White -four cannot be bought, ex-
cept by stealth and in the tiniest
quantities. The black flour which all
use now makes tht blacklist of bread
The poorest peasants formerly ate
something similar The cost of this
flour formerly was the equivalent of
about rs cents per pood (36 pounds.
Pounds Of Flour a Month.
AT present in Vologda each person
is allowed 5 pounds of this flour a
month; enough to permit about three
thin slices OF bread per day. But
more is procurable through irregu-
lar channels. The correspondents
icot pOu5iS q tPoOd yColCluoy lOi OiN
hundred and fifty rubles; just three
hundred times the old price.
There is nothing else quite as bad
as this, but, with meat butter and
all other foodstuffs the prices are
from ten to fifty times the old
amount Everything is by card; that
is, purchases are limited and city
(soviet) controlled, but it is quite
possible, if one has enough money, to
secure larger quantities by stealth.
but the soviet hec quite an effec-
tive way of controlling this under
handed trading-the "obusk" COB
usk" is Russian for search A dozen
or SO armed soldiers and Red Guard
swoop down now and then on the
house the correspondent occupies and
confiscate the surplus supplies
When to these difficulties are added
confiscation of bank accounts of the
wealthy families their plight can be
imagined.