The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 7, 1924, Page 9

[ i White Terror in Bulgaria EWS is beginning to come in from that country of horrors—BUL- GARIA. Horrors upon horrors are be- ing committed there by the white bands. It requires the perverse imag- ination of reactionaries to invent the sadist crimes perpetrated in thous- ands of cases by the Wrangel solda- teska against the Bulgarian workers and peasants. Some of their deeds are so incredibly bestial that it is al- most: impossible to write them down. To give the workers of the world an idea how abominably the reactionar- ies treat their fallen victims, we shall quote a few instances from the plenti- ful material contained in a long re- port placed before the Central Com- mittee of the INTERNATIONAL RED AID by Comrade Korlarov. s * . HE vengeance of the reactionary soldateska, whose acts border on madness, is not satisfied in Bulgaria with individual terrorist acts. Like a swarm of locusts they infect cities and villages. The white soldiers be- have as in an enemy country. Heavy artillery is used against towns and villages the inhabitants of which were among the rebels. . Thus cities and villages have been wiped off the face of the earth. In Berkovitza a band of 100 Wrangel soldiers destroyed all the dwellings of the workers and looted or destroyed the shops of the petty- bourgeoisie. Rebels who were taken alive by the troops were tied by these infamous torturers to motor lorries and died a miserable death being dragged along the ground in the mad career of the lorries. Berore putting to death the prisoners, they flogged them until blood flowed. In the village of BJELNEL all WOMEN AND YOUNG GIRLS WERE VIOLATED by the sol- diers. All the young men of this vil- lage were’ TORTURED in a most cruel manner and then murdered. All goods and chattels were CARRIED OFF and the houses WERE BURNED. All the villages in the FERDINAND region met with the same fate. The captured revolutionaries there were huddled together and the soldateska practised with their swords on their live bodies). WOMEN AND CHIL- DREN WERE BRUTALLY ILIL- TREATED AND VIOLATED. By such terrible methods entire families were exterminated in many localities. s ¢ @ N the town of BURGAS 300 workers and peasants were huddled together and KILLED BY MACHINE GUN FIRE. In the valley of UNROVEN several revolutionary corps which had surrendered WERE CUT DOWN TO THE LAST MAN. Their DEAD BOD- IES WERE FOUND MUTILATED. In another village 300 peasants were arrested, were driven to the town of WIDDIEN and were SO CRUELLY ILLTREATED ON THE WAY that they succumbed there and then. In the village of MAKREACH 30 peas- ants were arrested and were only liberated after they had been turned into cripples through the treatment meted out to them. Such COLLEC- TIVE ACTS OF VENGEANCE have been reported by the dozen from other cities and villages. Nearly all the PARTY PREMISES of the Com- munist Party were set on fire and razed to the ground. In the village of BREGOVO the Communist member of Parliament, Stanko Zasstoff, was ar- rested in his rooms and HIS WIFE WAS VIOLATED BEFORE HIS EYES BY THE WHITE BANDITS BEFORE HE WAS TAKEN AWAY. Several peasant deputies were arrested and their families (including in one case a 4 year old child) were either mur- dered or brutally illtreated. THE 60 YEAR OLD PEASANT DEPUTY IVAN PARVANOV FROM THE VIL- LAGE OF GORNO-ZEVROVEN WAS BRUTALLY MURDERED. After the whole village population had been driven to the village common, they had to witness the old man being tortured to death by having his nose, ears, hands and feet cut off. HIS MUTI- LATED BODY WAS THROWN TO THE DOGS OF THE VILLAGE. They wanted to compel by flogging the old.man who was in his agony to call out: “Long live democracy,” but he died without welcoming the vic- tory of “democracy.” In the village of GROMSCHI 40 peasants were placed in single file, and they prac- tised to see through how many of them a bullet would go. The su.viv- Down with Fascism! Workers’ Demonstration in Sofia against repressions of Bulgarian government. By E. Wagner ors of this experiment WERE CUT DOWN. Just as these executioners do not flinch before the assassination of little children and old people, SO THEY ALSO PRACTICE THEIR BLOODY DEEDS ON DOCTORS AND NURSES. Thus the doctors Iliyev and Botcheff, as well as the red cross nurses Verka Demianova and Katia Spassova were brutally murdered. This is what the reactionaries call “practical christianity”! . * . EVERAL PRIESTS who were on the side of the rebels WERE ALSO BUTCHERED, for instance the priest ANREI IGNATOV of the village of MEDKOVETSK. THIS BRAVE PRIEST HAD BEEN THE LEADER OF THE RISING IN HIS DISTRICT. Unarmed and with bared breast he marched at the head of the rebels, and by his heroic example, led the masses to a victorious attack on the barbed wire entanglements protecting the barracks in LOM. He was arrested in his village and was to be hanged on the village common before his as- sembled parishioners. But when the priest launched an impassioned indict- ment against the reactionaries, the hands of the officers trembled and he could not place the noose around his neck. The priest apostrophized him thus: “Executioner of thy people, why dost thou tremble, maybe you have a spark of conscience left in your body?” Then he said in turning to- wards this small number of big peas- ants: “You tyrants of the people, do not rejoice too soon, your hour will soon come when your power will come to a shameful end.” But even this brave man met with a cruel death ‘at the hands of the executioners. When prisoners are made, they are thrown by the hundreds into damp dark cellars where they are left with- out food and water and without even any conveniences. * . *¢ E could give many more such examples, especially as the gov- ernment punitive expeditions among the Bulgarian revolutionaries are still going on. The misery of the prisoners, refugees and relatives of the fallen beggars description. THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE INTERNA- TIONAL RED AID HAD IMMEDIATE- LY SENT TEN THOUSAND DOL- LARS AS A FIRST INSTALLMENT OF RELIEF. But much larger amounts are required. WORKERS OF ALL -| COUNTRIES, HELP THE-INTERNA- TIONAL RED AID TO COME TO THE ASSISTANCE OF OUR BULGARIAN COMRADES! National Problems in South-Eastern Europe By KARL RADEK rupture of the negotiations of the Soviet Union delegation with the delegation of the Rou- manian Boyars regarding the plebis- cite in Bessarabia has more serious importance than this would seem at the first glance. It appears to be a diplomatic vanguard fight bringing for- ward on the order of the day a pro- blem from which not only the Rou- manian Boyars, but also capitalist world in general will not be able to turn away; it puts on the order of the day the problem of the destinies of the nations residing in the South- East of Europe. The victorious Entente has not solved the South-Hastern problem, just as the war schemes of Germany were not solved, when she was at the zenith of her success. Germany and Austria-Hungary regarded the South- East as the bridge connecting them with the Near East. The single nations of the South-Hast they estim- ated as columns, on which this bridge is supporting itself, and these columns they strengthened with all means. For this purpose, Austria, tried to seduce Roumania by promising her Bessara- bia, and another part of Serbia they delivered to the Austria-Hungarian imperialism. The Social Democratic herald of Austrian imperialism, Herr gRenner, on the day of the defeat of the Serbians on the Cossovo Polye poured out his heart in a lyri- cal-historical article, by which he tried to prove to the Serbians that in the period of imperialism the loss of national independence was not important, provided that the Serbian nation was maintained, though even in the form of cannon fodder and beasts of burden for the Austrian im- perialism. The victorious Entente, in its turn, proceeded along the steps of the Aus- trian and German imperialism; it remarked the columns as its columns, as its military and economical equip- ment, delivering considerable ter- ritories of Bulgaria as sops partly to the Serbs, partly to the Roumanians, and in its turn congratulating the Roumanian Boyars for utilizing the moment and seizing Bessarabia. As a result, Serbia has now a national problem, Roumania has now a series of national problems. Neither the one, nor the others appears to be a homogeneous national state, both ap- pear to be a state of various national- ities, In Serbia, a small clique of Belgrad lawyers is oppressing Croats, Macedonians etc, In Roumania the Boyars are oppressing Bulgarians, Germans, Moldovians, Jews, etc. The masses of the people in these countries, awakened by the war, are raising their head and striv- ing to tear the chains to which they are fettered. Especially in Roumania the national problem constitutes at Ukrainians, the same time the problem of the emancipation of the peasants from the great land-owners. Does this problem concern the Union of Soviet Republics? It does, not only for the reason that we are a revolutionary state, but also for the fact that this Union is not a new name for old Russia, but a Union of nations which, after having over- thrown the yoke of the land-owners and the capitalists, have thereby liqui- dated the privileges of Great Russia and created a fraternal community of the various nations which are liv- ing on the territory of the former em- Pire of the Czars. The Union of So- viet Republics is not the continuation of the politics of Czarism. It recog- nized and recognizes Lettland, Estho- nia, Lithuania, Poland, in so far as they constitute states of nationalities formerly suppressed by Czarism. But what statute says that the Union of Soviet Republics must recognize the violation carried out against the Mol- dovans, Ukrainians, etc., who were seized by the Roumanians Boyars thanks to robbery and swindle? Even when the relative strength compels us to recognize the fact of such a viola- tion, as we did regarding Poland, which is oppressing White-Russians and Ukrainians, we do not cease to judge the struggle of the oppressed nationalities as a just one and morally and critically we are standing without restriction for them in their struggle for emancipation. The peace negotiations with Rou- mania began in the moment when the military strength of Soviet Russia per- mitted her to pass from moral sym- pathy to political support. The Union of Soviet Republics is strong enough to refuse to recognize the fact of the demand of a plebiscite regarding the national problem in the South-East. The national masses of the Soviet Union, whose brethren are languish- ing under the national yoke of the Roumanian Boyars, had the right to demand from the Soviet government that it shall take over the protection of the Moldovians and the Ukrainians. The Soviet government did this and raised the slogan in the South-East of Europe. It showed the working mas- ses of these countries that there is still another form of living together of the nations, besides their oppres- sion on the part of the privileged clique of Gfeat Powers, that such a form is the voluntary union of the nations which have thrown off the chains and fetters of imperialism and of the rule of the land-owners. Soviet Russia has pushed the problem for- ward which is becoming mature and which will play a formidable revolu- tionary role in the reconstruction of Europe on a new basis, Whether the masses of the people will attain this reconstruction in the immediate future or whether they are to meet ‘with a long struggle, we do not know.