Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 May 1919 — Minute Men Aid Allies In Russia [ARTICLE]

Minute Men Aid Allies In Russia

Peasants Without Uniforms Give Valuable Assistance to International Army. HAIL ALLIES AS RESCUERS In Nearly Every Attack Made on Enemy These Partisans Go Ahead of or Along the Flanks Looking for Pot Shot. With the Americans on the North Russian Front. —In this international army, which is fighting numerically superior bolshevik forces in north Russia, there are, mingled with the half dozen or so varieties of uniforms, men who wear no uniforms at all They fight, as did the francs tireurs in the Franco-Prussian war, and the first minute men of the American revolution, for the protection of' their firesides. They are peasants, bearded or beardless, with nothing to distinguish them from the thousands of other peasants living around them but their guns and cartridge belts. They are the irregular or “partisan” troops, and the sentiments they are showing and fighting for in thK wilderness of snow and pine trees loom up so patriotically that the gdvernment of northern Russia is beginning to look upon them as the keystone on which to build a Russian state that will be free from bolshevism.

Hail Allies as Rescuers. These peasants have known the ravages of bolshevik troops in their villages. They have seen friends executed for antibolshevik activities. They hail the allies as rescuers. In nearly every attack the regular troops make against the enemy one finds these armed partisans, crack shots, going ahead of or along the flanks of the Americans, British, French and trained, uniformed Russians to scout a path or take a pot shot at the enemy. The point of view of these peasants is this: The army has not yet been organized; we are robbed and ill treated by the bolshevik!; therefore we have to defend ourselves. The peasants In the Kholmogory district, along the Dwina river, have been fighting for four months. Military authorities say they do their work as cheerfully and efficiently as regular soldiers. The red guards are helpless against the revolted population. ✓, . ■ .

The appearance of peasants fighting voluntarily against Trotzky’s forces has a demoralizing effect upon the bolsheviki, as it disabuses the minds of some of them of the theory that they are being opposed only by “imperialists.” Scout Like Animals. The partisans know that if they are captured they will be shot. But, knowing the forest country as city dwellers know their own streets, they are seldom captured. In scouting they are as tireless as wild animals. The government of the north for a long time did nothing to help the partisans, but now that their usefulness is recognized they and their families are provisioned as if they- were regular soldiers. In December a big dele gatloh of partisans went to Archangel and, according to the local newspapers, “this new apparition stirred up all the classes of population of th. town.” It became clear that a sound evolution from anarchy toward patriotism had' taken place among the people; that the efforts of the partisans, though of a local character, must be supported, and that it was absolutely necessary to create a suitable atmosphere for further organization of partisan detachments. A big committee including all political parties, has been formed in Archangel to aid this plan, and a new partisan newspaper is to be published for the benefit of the fighting peasants. ‘