"The law providing for the nationalization of women in Northeast Russia has been suspended in one province as a result of popular outcry, according to information reaching London today, from Stockholm. "The Commissary of Vladimir has, by decree, appointed a committee of women, who are to inquire into operations of the law and make a report with the least possible delay. His action has been approved by the local Soviet. "'The Krasnaya Gazeta' publishes an account of the results of nationalization. The system provides that every girl on reaching the age of eighteen must register her name in the Bureau of Free Love, after which she is compelled to select a partner from among men between the ages of 19 and 50 years old. The law led to lamentable confusion, says the 'Gazeta,' in judicial notions as to personal inviolability. "A few days after the Soviet's decree, which women very generally ignored, two men known to nobody, arrived in the town and seized the two daughters of a well-known non-bourgeois comrade, declaring they had chosen them as wives and that the girls without further ceremony must submit, as they had not observed the registration rule. "Comrades Yablonovski and Guriakin, who sat as judges on the claim, decided that the men were right, and the girls were carried off. They have not been heard of since by the village folk. "This, says the Gazeta, was done in the name of the nationalization of women. "Many other instances of the fantastic operation of the law, not to speak of its inhumanities, are cited by the Gazeta. Enthusiasts for nationalization, naturally all males, raid whole villages, seize young girls, and demand proof that they are not over 18. As this proof is difficult to give, many of the girls are carried off, and there have been suicides and murders as a result. "In the town of Kovrov, a campaign without parallel since the Trojan war was waged between the vengeful relatives of an abducted nationalized girl and her persecutors. "In this town the 'register of nationalized women' was opened on December 1, but up to February 1 last only two women, both over 40, and neither of whom had ever been married, registered themselves as willing to accept the first husband the state sent along. "On the committee which is now to revise the nationalization decree or to recommend its complete abrogation sits Mme. Vera Arkadieff, a Bolshevist enthusiast, who commanded a detachment of women soldiers during the recent operations against Admiral Kolchak's army at Perm. She has been twice wounded."
"The Krasnaya Gazeta," translated, means the Red Gazette. It is a Bolshevist newspaper published in Petrograd. The following "Special Cable" to "The New York Times," dated Milan, April 24, 1919, published April 26, 1919, gives a Bolshevist's explanation of the Russian sex legislation: