THE GENERAL STRIKE STRIDES FORWARD
Petersburg, December 22. The telegraphic communication with Moscow is suspended. The strike began this afternoon in 220 factories. Seventy thousand workers, roughly one-third of the total workforce, are out on strike.
Petersburg, December 22. The strike, which began yesterday afternoon, is spreading. The noon train to Chernyshevskoye set out under strong military escort. The district in which the Imperial Bank and the department stores are located is being strongly guarded. Infantry patrols move through the streets.
THE BLACK HUNDREDS AT WORK
Moscow, December 21 (report in the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). Striking railroad workers have been attacked by wagon drivers. Many of the wagon drivers’ horses were killed in the resulting street brawl. Members of the Workers’ Deputies Office have been arrested. Several acts of violence have been carried out by the mob against revolutionary speakers and students. The strikers want to force the post and telegraph civil servants into joining the strike, too. According to a motion of the Association of Bank Civil Servants, all private banks are closed, as are all warehouses, shops, and theaters. A group of 300 men moved through the streets, forcing bars and restaurants to close their premises.
The report yesterday from Kharkiv had been confirmed. Two hundred and fifty soldiers from the Starobyelsk and Lebeinsk regiments took part in the rally yesterday with red flags. The troops sent against the crowd could ignore their instruction as regards the breachers of the peace—and did not fire. The revolutionaries turned that to their own advantage.
Moscow, December 21 (report from the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). An assembly of 12,000 people took place today in the premises of the aquarium. Infantry, dragoons, gendarmerie, Cossacks, and police occupied the exits and demanded that the people locked in hand over their weapons.
Moscow, December 22. At a meeting of striking railroad workers, a motion was passed allowing one train with grain per day to depart to the provinces under threat.
Petersburg, December 22. New disturbances have broken out in Tbilisi. The Germans in Kokzen have formed a civil defense force.
Petersburg, December 22. Shaparov, the leader of the mutineers in Rostov, is said to have escaped from prison. According to reports in from Kharkiv, Rostov is apparently really in the hands of the insurgents. Reports have also been received from Sevastopol of trouble fermenting.
IN LIVONIA
Petersburg, December 22. As has been reported from Ryeshiza, in the governorate of Vitebsk, that section of the region lying along the Livonian border is on strike. Catholic Latvians living in the region are being terrorized by Livonian tribes. Spurred on by agitators, they defy state authority and call for the removal of the regional state leaders. Peasant disturbances are underway in the rest of the region. As has been reported by telegraph to Novoye Vremya [New Times] from Riga, by tearing up the tracks at night, rebels have caused a military train carrying sappers that had been deployed to Riga to derail—whereby five men were killed and twenty wounded. The sappers had to retreat to Dünaburg. In the vicinity of Kockenhusen station, the aides of Peterson—the regional boss—were put before a people’s court together with Peterson’s managing director and killed in an atrocious manner. A strong troop detachment with artillery has arrived in Riga from Tuckum. It threatens to punish the city in an exemplary way if those guilty of the massacre of the garrison aren’t handed over.
Riga, December 21. Six citizens of the German Empire, Lieutenant Habenicht, Bader (a teacher), Wotrich (a hunter), Hetmer, Schneepel, and Gerul (a domestic servant), who were being held by the insurgents, have been let free. Lieutenant Habenicht is still definitely in the city, while the others have returned to Germany.
Riga, December 21 (report by the Petersburg Telegraph Agency). Eight mitrailleuses have arrived from Petersburg. Gendarmes from various railroad stations, who have arrived unarmed, report that the insurgents have taken their weapons from them. Insurgents attacked a train transporting coined gold for the state bank in the vicinity of Walk. These were, however, chased away by troops who rushed to the scene, so that the train could make it to Riga and the gold be handed over, unscathed, to the bank.
A NEW CHILDREN’S CRUSADE?
We receive the following interesting piece of news from a reliable source: Stettin, December 21. On Saturday a steamer left from Stettin for Riga with 150 armed German students on board, sailing to assist their fellow countrymen in Livonia. The steamer is called Ostsee and is scheduled to reach Riga on Tuesday.
If the news is accurate, then world history will certainly weave a laurel wreath as hats for this corps of valorous little German boys, rushing to help the Junkers* cornered in Russia.