Evening star., 1923-10-02

1t is q huge country. 1t could swal-
How up the United States. France. Ger
/ many. Italy, Turkey, United Kingdom,
Spain, Belgium. Switzerland, Austria
and Hungary. That is hard to grasp
But the area now controlled by the
present government of Russia is larg-
or than that. Russia would still have
room enough left to add TO those
countries already mentioned an addf-
tionaI territory equal to all of Europe
outside of Russia. If we can imagine
ourselves getting on the train at San
Francisco and getting off the train at
London, England. all the time In one
country, that would give US an idea
of the size of Russia
Russia today is more than two and
a half times as large as the United
States in area and contains $4,000. 900
people. That is what Russia has left
after losing, since the war, Poland.
Finland. Esthonia, Latvia. Lithuania
aud Bessarabia to the RuHaanians
She lost an area of 100000 square
miles containing %, 600, 900 people. ?.
Today the Russian socialist federal
soviet republic-the official name OF
the soviet governments a fedora
tion of eight independent republics,
tonomous republics, two labor COM
munes. 4 total of twenty-five inde-
pendent political units. Much of the
detail work of organization Is carried
| out without any active participation
by the central government at Moscow.
The tendency of late has been for the
central government at Moscow to re-
| lease more and more power to these
different independent units.
The old monarchy OF the czar was
March IL, 1917. Gear Nicholas III was
forced to abdicate. and Prince Lvoff
became premier under orders from
the duma, the Russian national legis-
lature. He was weak, and on August
6, 1917, he was succeeded by Alexan-
der Kerensky as premier. During
this time the peasants seized the
lands and divided them up among
themselves. Kerensky. a brilliant
young attorney, had been n socialist
advocate, but he tried hard to take a
middle course ground and to please
all groups. He failed. And on No
vember :, 1917, the all-Russian COM
gress of workingmen. soldiers and
power. 1t was the military revolu-
tionary committee of Petrograd which
wrested the power from Kerensky.
Lenin and Trotsky, new names TO the
world. We're lifted to power, and the
dictatorship of the proteriat was set up
history of the world.
81 ZOO .O00. 900 of Foreigners' Property
ConhScated.
Immediately the new government
withdrew from the world war and sign
ed the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Ger
many. Her war problem over, she
turned to internal affairs.
All rights OF private property were
abolished. The government took over
all transports, communications, in
dustry, food, money, title to land, stocks
of goods, the productive processes OF all
activities. and assumed complete charge
of the products of industry and the
products Of agriculture. BY December.
1919, private property and private capi-
| tai was practically gone. This applied
TO all property, whether owned by for
eigners or Russians. In this way about
81, 200. 100000 OF property owned by for
eigners within Russia was contlscated.
From November. 1917, TO March. 1927,
| the Russian government tried to hold
I 10 pure communism. She tried desper-
ately to bring order out OF chaos. But
matters were going from bad to worse.
Her transportation had broken down.
Her exports had dwindled to nothing.
The economic blockade of the allies
during this time was causing disaster.
disease and death to thousands. The
soviet government was desperate. II
could not function, and the policy of
fconscrption OF all the peasants.S,crops
outside of what was left TO the peasants
| for a bare living had resulted in u
smaller and smaller crop being planted.
| The soviet government was hanging by
a thread.
Then came the invasions from the
outside by Denekine Kolchak and Wran-
gel, backed up by both men and money
| from the allies. These invasionS saved