Evening star., 1923-09-23
SEMlNOFFS DEATH ENDS
!, SENSATIONAL CAREER
Leader of Russian Whites Picturesque
Rascal, Who Flogged Americans
and Fought Bolsheviki.

Baikal, but had not crossed Its
| waters.
AS soon as interior Siberia had been
, evacuated by Japanese troops Semi
! ing to Japanese protection at Dairen,
| while his troops entered the zone OF
| the Chinese Eastern railway in Man
churia in an attempt to rejoin their
! commander on the coast. With the
capture of Chita. the government es-
| tablished at VerkhneUdinsk trans
| ferred its capital to that city.
Exiled From Russian Soil.
Since his flight from Chita in No
vember. 1920, Semionoff had not dared
| 10 return to Russian soil, although he
had continuously carried on plots In
the hope of regaining his lost power.
/ His death at Yokohama removes the
! nucleus of czarist military officials In
| the far east, and there is but little
| chance that an armed attempt will
ever again be made to drive the reds
| from Siberia.
The three governments left in ST.
! IBERIA after Semionoff's flight sought
! TO unite. finally agreeing on Chita as
the city to which representatives of
all should go to discuss ways and
means of amalgamation. Meeting in
November, 1920. they decided to erect
| provisional government there and
| TO draft a law for the creation of a
1
universal suffrage. BY December this
| had been accomplished: the elections
! for the assembly were held in Janu-
ary, and in February, 1921, the as
Sembly convened.
MerkuIOvs Ride Into Power.
BY May 25, seeing that the Vladi-
vostok government had joined with
the rest of Siberia. and had become a
part of the Far Eastern republic, a
coup d'etat was engineered in Viadi-
Vostok by which the local govern
/ ment was overthrown and the reac-
tionary Merkulov brothers rode into
| power. The MerkuloVs established in
Nladivostok what the Russians call a
black government. To them. the
and the soyiets red" but political
reactionaries not of the nobility are
! black" The Merkulovs and ali that
they have done belong to this mid
night color.
1t was then that President Hard
ing sounded>the nations of the world
regarding the Washington confer
ence. The call that went out from
Washington in July. 1921, was a call
that has wrought tremendous
/ changes in the Russian far east quite
as much as in, China and Japan The
citizens of the Far Eastern Republic.
although they resent bitterly the fact
! that their government was not Off
cially represented at the. conference,
! feel that the public conversations
with Japan at Washington are the
prime factor which finally brought
about complete Japanese evacuation
or continental Siberia last October
Conference without Results,
In September, 1921, Toxic and
Chita met at Dairen in what proved
to be an abortiVe conference after it
had dragged on for eight months.
The object of the Dairen conference
was 70 solve all outstanding ques-
tlons between the two countries and
to draw up a trade agreement. 1t
failed because Japan refused to name
date on which she would withdraw
her troops from Siberian soil.
In December and January, when
Japan's Siberian policy was just COM
ing under fire in Washington. there
occurred the Habarovsk offensive, by
which the whites, or blacks, captured
| that city. Chita felt at the time that
| in one way or another the hand of
TOXIC had brought this about, but
in February the reds recaptured
Habarovsk and the sphere of Jap
anese influence" was limited to Vlad-
ivostok, the Siberian littoral, and the
so-called neutral zone of the Ussuri
railway from the sea to Nikolsk;
Japan Announces Withdrawal.
In June, 1922. Japan finally an
nounced that her troops would be
withdrawn from the mainland of Ash
attic Russia. At the same time Toxic
tentatively offered to reopen fegoti-
ations with Chita, pointing out that
the cause for the failure at Dairen
had been removed through the an
nounced withdrawal. Chita accepted
on condition. Chita says, that soviet
Russia might also participate. In
September the representatives of To-
kio, Chita and Moscow met at Chang
chun in Manchuria and once more at
tempted to settle their differences
and to draw up a trade agreement.
The Changchun conference failed. Re-
gardless of the failure at Changchun,
Toxic continued with plans for evac-
uation of the mainland, and at 2
o'clock -on the afternoon of October
25, 1922, the last of the troops of
the Japanese expeditionary forces