The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-05-17

oA TOpDCTy, fiIiA ont1 deso
 after the first entry of the Bol-
 shevilxs, on March 13, 1918, des- crfbed by MT. Courfer-FOrSter to- day.
 \ regime of brutal tyranny was established in which liberty and safety disappeared. Murders of the most revOlting nature were of frequent occurrence, and in discriminate footing was the or der of the day.
 (By R. Courier Forster, British Chap lain at Odessa and the Ports of the Black Sea.)
 If the brutal tyranny which the BolsheviStS have compelled the ter ror-ridden Russian people to accept in the name of Freedom of Mind and Body" punishes all liberty of thought with torture, outrage, and death, freedom of body is equally travested by unthinkable cruelties , unless the term is accepted as syn onymous with bestial indecency and | moral depravity.
 In Odessa, after the first capture 1 of the city of the Bolsheviks, my ex- perience of what the New Civilization understands by the great phrase was certainly Illuminating.
 1 Of freedom of speech, or of the Press, or of religious conviction there was none. People were arrested on every hand for any indiscreet crit icism of the existing regime. News papers were fined heavily, or even | their publication suspended for dar- | ing to publish any opinions displeas- | ing to the Bolshevik leaders. Ser vices in the churches were frequently | interrupted with uproar and hostile demonstrations. The only Freedom 1 of Mind" allowed was that which | was studiously concealed, and denied all expression in speech, look or writ ! ing. Freedom of body" as the Bol- sheviks understand U e phrase means sickening orgies of piglike depravity. Dreadful Orgies. l Women and girls engaged in shop | ping commissions in the lower parts
 of the towns were seized by bands of men from the Red army and car | ried off to warehouse yards and sim | liar places, where there fate was worse than death. Indeed, in many | instances they were found dead on | the following morning. Orgies which | defy description were of daily occur ence.
 Wine shops and cellars were by de- | grees broken into and footed through | out the city. Free drinks from pails
 
 cared to have them. Women return | ing from market in the morning were l stopped and compelled to drink from
 pails held on high by two soldiers | On one afternoon it was my fate to | come away from a shop and find the streets running red with hundreds of gallons of wine pouring from the
 smashed vats of a great store. Num-
 bers of Bolsheviks lay flat on the | I a O pr xxrifh foo | drinking from the streams which l flowed past, carrying with it the ac- | cumulated filth and refuse of the un- l cleaned city.
 l This is the Bolshevik idea of Free | dom of Body" coupled with the right
 to make the public parks and gardens | the scene of 1ndescribabIe obsceni- | ties, and a recognition of murder and
 assa ssination as the customary meth
 ods of dealing with those whose ideas l of Freedom of Body savour of sym | pathy with the worn-out and be-
 nighted standards of the effete of civ- | iliation of the Allies
 | Murder of a General One such instance of the customary l me ethod of manifesting political dis
 approval robbed me of a charming l acquaintance of many years. | General x lived in a flat in Dom | Papoodoff. Since the Revolution he 1 had retired from the army and all l public life, and carefully sustained
 from any participation in politics. His l extreme discretion did not avail to
 save him. He was under suspicion of
 harbouring latent hostility and re-
 pugnance towards the all important | Bo1shevik conception of Freedom | of Mind and Body"
 One afternoon a party of soldiers of the Red army came to his apart
 ment. They found the General fin the
 act of closing his front door; he was | going out to tea with some friends. | The soldiers told him he was under l arrest and must accompany them. He asked permission to tell his wife, | who, he explained, was following him l in a few minutes to the house of a
 friend, and would be extremely anx- l ious about his non-appearance. The l leader of the band refused the re- | quest, declaring, "She will know soon | enough!" He also declined to let one of the men to ring the bell and in- form his family he had been arrest ed.
 The guards led him downstairs In
 the vestibule they shot him dead. and leaving his body in Ia pool of blood, lighted cigarettes and went their way. 1 Three minutes later his wife came | down on her way to join him at tea, | and found her husbands corpse in the | hall.
 1 Two hours later on the san after
 noon other Red Guards came to the
 same house and carried out more exc l cutions. This time in the flats of the | victims.
 FroIN day to day one's soul in the social circle diminished Friends with ] whom one conversed in tho evening had vanished the following morning. Thieves Fall Out.
 Sometimes the Red Guards in searching the houses were content with giving insults and taking loot. | Frequently their object was not con- fined to murder or robbery, but to I inflict the greatest possible amount | of mental distress and harassment by repeated and systematiC visitations.
 which might or might not result ir | assassination.
 As many as five search parties came | to my flat in one morning. Some friends of mine had their house
 thrown into the widest disorder and confusion, and everything overhauled IT tmes in one day. Many officers were done to death under circum-