Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1902 — PEASANTS JOIN RUSSIAN REVOLT [ARTICLE]

PEASANTS JOIN RUSSIAN REVOLT

Faith in Rumor Anent Nobles’ Estates Causes Serious Trouble. ORDER UNDOWNERS TO LEAVE Emancipated slave* Believe the Csar Ha* Ordered Land to Brf Divided Among Them and Arrange for Distribution of Everything In sight. The revolutionary movement in southern and central Russia is spreading and the authorities are powerless to quell the disorders. The most significant feature is the manifest sympathy shown by a portion of the military. The labor population of the whole district between Moscow and Vladimir is in revolt. Encounters between the troops and workingmen have been numerous and many persons have been killed and wounded. A Uhlan regiment, commanded by Colonel Moroseff, refused to act against the workmen. In the southern provinces the situation is worse and its gravity is apparent from the fact that Dragomiroff, Governor General of Kieff; Pocarciff, vice director of the department of police, and other officials have joined Von Plehwe, the Minister of the Interior, at Kharkoff. The noted chateau of Romone, owned by Duke Alexander of Oldenburg, has been burned by the peasants, who practically ruined the estate. The duke is the father-in-law of the czar’s sister, Olga, who married his son, Duke Peter, last year. The Voronej sugar refineries have especially suffered from the outbreak. It now develops that the agitators wbo are chiefly responsible for the spread of the'revolutionary movement among the hungry peasants used a curious political canard to bring the former sdrfs and landowners into collision. A rumor was industriously circulated that the czar had ordered the lands of the nobles to be divided among the emancipated serfs. The peasants thereupon formed committees, under the commune officials, which waited on the landowners and ordered them to vacate the land withheld from the peasants, chose the crown agents, and proceeded to distribute the land and movables, leaving the nobles from fifteen to twenty acres each. The proceedings, which were orderly, were conducted with the utmost gravity until the authorities interfered. Thereafter there was riot, arson and devastation. In military circles it is believed that the army maneuvers, which have been planned to take place in Orel and Koursk, cannot occur, owing to the disturbed state of those governments.