The Connecticut labor news., 1922-07-14
FIRST DESCRIPTION OF TRIAL
 IN MOSCOW SHOWS UP ANARCHY
 AND FALSE REPORTS OF COMMUNISTS

RevQlutionaries are now accused. Fal
 from having initiated the terror the
 Social Revolutionaries, under Ker. ensky, formed committee which in sisted that Trotzky and other i'm
 prisoned Bolshevists should be re. ? leased, while another faction of the
 party led by Spiridonova, which had
 captured Dzerjinsky, head of the Che Ka, the dread terrorist tribunal, re-
 leased him again. Indeed one of the
 leaders now on trial, Gotz, was a
 member of the very committee which
 released Trotzky-and Trotzky is probably now the most powerful in
 dividual of the Soviet regime-(since Fthe illness of Lerine).
 Bolshevist Terror Shown in Two
 Phases.
 In the Social Revolutionary indict- ment the Bolshevist terror is divided into two phases. During the first period the masses were stirred on to every form of violence by Bolshevist propaganda and were then uniformly exonerated by Bolshevist tribunals although the massacres which occur red in a great many of the towns, such as Sebastopol, Simferopol and others were carried out in accordance with the Bolshevist prescription lists" During the second period it became "a state terror, organized and centralized by special body of pro- fessional spies and executioners." Among the first Socialists and La bor Unionists to be executed by the reorganized terror, under the notor ious "Che-Ka," were of course a num- Der of members of the only popularly elected legislature Russia ever had, the anti-Bolshevist Constitutional As sembly. One of these was also the leader of the National Peasant Soviet, another was president of the Metal Workers Union at Astrakan, etc. At mittee of the Social Revolutionaries were shot At Petrograd a number of Socialists were included on the famous barge which was loaded with GOO prisoners and then sunk on the way to Kronstadt.
 The Bolshevists remind us that the Che-Ka admits having shot 8,ooo prisoners, but describes the others "as the immediate victims of the civil war" These latter killings, the Soc ial Revolutionaries show were far more numerous.
 How Bolshevists Dealt With Strike. After referring to number of Soviet mass murders" the, Social Revolutionaries give the details of one o fthe principal instances. Dur ing March, 1919, the working men of Astrakan went on strike to secure two rights" both of which had been denied by the Soviets-the right to fish and the right to purchase food. The Bolshevists attacked meeting of 10000 of these unarmed working men with grenades and machine guns. They were surrounded again and again by a cordon and fired upon un- til nightfall The population was so terribly enraged against the Soviets that the local commander became 1 alarmed and telegraphed Moscow for further orders. Trotzky replied, "settle merciless1y." The local Soviet commander then proceeded to organ ize the slaughter in a more deliberate and systematic manner. There were wholesale executions in the various save bullets prisoners were bound their necks were thrown into the Volga. A third stage in the massacre began when the Bolshevists realized that they had been slaughtering workingmen exclusively. In order, therefore, to cover up their traces and to present the whole affair as a part of the "class struggle" sys- tematic execution of the bourgeoisie was then begun. Within few days there was hardly a house in Astrakan which did not count a victim. There the proceedings since the Bolshevists themselves publish lists containing can be no doubt as to this stage of the names of hundreds of 'bourgeois" shot-all in a small provincial capi- tall
 The Social Revolutionaries add the following pregnant comment: "1t may appear strange that the usual scapegoats for everything-th Men sheviks and Social l-Revolutionaries- were not held responsible for this ris- ing. The reason Is that the Socialistic parties had been completely destroy- ed by previous repressions in Astra kan"
 After brief summary of indi vidual and mass murders Car4 ied on by the judges and accusers at the Moscow that the Social Revolution aries proceed to discuss "the un- speakable tortures at the prisons.
 An Example of Red Methods of Torture.
 The Moscow Political Red Cross received a report from a peasant of | the Kursk Government as to excru- eating torture by fogging and fore ing needles under the finger nails At | Ekaterinodar, among others, the off cer, Terchoff, the burger Axiutin and | the ex-Communist Potolya were tor tured in the following way: two lusty l Chekists seized them by the shoulders and two others by the head, while a | fifth struck them on the neck with 1 the handle of a Nogan or Browning pistol. Under this treatment the vic tims' necks swelled up, blood flowed from their noses and mouths, and