New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-31
Trotzky Goes to Front in
Command of Infantry
Regiment and 2 Cavalry
Divisions to Hold Line
Soviet Appeals to
Peasants for Aid
Guerrilla Warfare Against
Communists and Kuban
Cossacks'U Uprising Grow
By Joseph Shaplen
Special Cable to The Tribune

Copyright. 1921, New York Tribune Inc.
BERLIN, July 30-The starving
peasant hordes that are advancing on
Moscow, according to the Bolshevik
newspaper Izvestia, have reached Ka-
zan. The Soviet government is hur-
rledly arming troops in an effort to
halt this human avalanche.
Minister of War Trotzky, armed with
complete dictatorial authority, has left
Moscow for the Volga region, where he
will direct the operations Of the 11th
Infantry and the two cavalry divisions
which have been assigned to keep the
advancing peasant hordes beyond the
famine barrier erected by the goveren-
ment.
TO keep Russia's hungry mobs be-
yond the barrier is now the chief aim
OF the Bolshevik authorities. Failure
to do this means the annihilation of
both Moscow and Petrograd by the i'm
migrating hordes. The Soviet govern
ment is determined to curb the ad-
vance.
Peasant Mobs Attack Communists
The Bolsheviki have to contend also
with a body of partisans headed by
Antonoff Popoff. This group is com
posed of well-armed peasant mobs that
are operating over considerable part
OF central Russia, carrying on sys-
tematlc guerilla warfare against the
Communists, numbering Communist
officials, invading towns and villages
and cutting railway communications.
The Moscow government has dis
nQtnhnd
commanded a division of Red troops IN
the wars with Poland, to subdue this
anti Communist revolt.
Added to the other troubles Of the
MOSCOW government is an uprising Of
huban Cossacks, which broke out re-
Gently Not only has this movement
not bean suppressed, but it is steadily
assuming greater proportions. The
Cossacks have inflicted serious defeats
on the Red army, compelling the Boil
shevlkl to evacuate the whole region
between Station Kavkazkaya and Ar
mavlr, on the Rostov-Baku railway.
Inc Cossacks are trying to cut the rail
way further north.
Thls revolt has cut off the shipments
or petroleum from the enormous Baku
fields to central Russia.
Moscow Appeals to Peasants
While these military operations are
tanning the already critical situation
of the country, the -Bolshevik authori-
ties in Moscow are calling feverishly
for help. Izvestia publishes this ap-
peal to the peasants living in the more
fortunate provinces:
"Those peasants who are more for
tunate than their brothers can do more
than any one else to help the govern
ment handle the calamity which has
befallen soviet Russia. The army,
workers and peasants in the stricken
provinces must be supplied with bread.
If the more fortunate peasants do not
come to the governments aid in the
struggle against famine, our economic
life will be utterly destroyed and Rus
sia for many years will remain an i'm
proverished country without hope of
improveme
The Moscow Pravda reports that the
situation is particularly serious in
Samara, Saratov and Kazan, where, the
newspaper asserts, thousands are dying
the situation is growing more critical
every day and that the population,
driven to desperation, is organizing
anti-soviet demonstrations.
People Eat Grass and Straw
The terrible desolatlon IN south
ern Russia, where the people in
some districts are rapidly being
driven toward savagery as re-
suit of their awful hunger, is described
by refugees who have just made their
way to Berlin. Human beings are eat
ing everything in sight-grass, tree
bark, roots and straw.
AS far north as Kirsk one sees moth
ing but blackened, naked fields. The
railway .tations are besieged by pale
men, women and children in ragged
clothes who rush onto the train plat
forms almost before the train stops
and with outstretched hands beg:
Help, for the sake of the Christ! We
| are dying of hungerl"
Cholera Spreads Through South
Not only the peasants but the city
dwellers as we'll are deserting their
homes in vain search for food. Many
of those who are not killed by hunger
fall victims to cholera, which has
spread throughout southern Russia,
laying the population low by>thousands
All trains in the south are now being
guarded by detachments of troops as
the hungry mobs frequently have been
looting unprotected carriers. All rail
road employees in the Ukraine have
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