The Greatest Failure in All History - A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in Russia

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Title: The Greatest Failure in All History - A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in Russia
Author: Spargo, John
Language: English
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“THE GREATEST FAILURE
IN ALL HISTORY”

[Illustration]

BOOKS BY

JOHN SPARGO

“THE GREATEST FAILURE IN ALL HISTORY”
RUSSIA AS AN AMERICAN PROBLEM
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BOLSHEVISM
BOLSHEVISM
AMERICANISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY EXPLAINED

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817

“THE GREATEST FAILURE
IN ALL HISTORY”

_A Critical Examination of
The Actual Workings of
Bolshevism In Russia_

JOHN SPARGO

AUTHOR OF
“BOLSHEVISM” “THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BOLSHEVISM”
“RUSSIA AS AN AMERICAN PROBLEM”
“SOCIAL DEMOCRACY EXPLAINED”

[Illustration]

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

THE GREATEST FAILURE IN ALL HISTORY

G-U

_To The
MISGUIDED, THE MISTAKEN,
AND THE MISINFORMED
Who Have Hailed Bolshevism in Russia as the Advent of
A NEW FREEDOM_

_I Submit a Part of the Indisputable Evidence Upon Which, as a
Socialist, Who Believes in Democracy in Government and Industry--and
in the Generous Individualism Which Communism of Opportunity Alone
Can Give--I Base My Condemnation of Bolshevism as a Mad Attempt, by a
Brutal and Degrading Tyranny, to Carry Out an Impossible Program_

NOTE

My thanks are due to many friends, in this country and in Europe, for
their kindly co-operation, assistance, and advice. I do not name them
all--partly because many of them have requested me not to do so. I
must, however, express my thanks to Mr. Henry L. Slobodin of New York,
for kindly placing his materials at my disposal; Dr. S. Ingerman of
New York, for his valuable assistance; Mr. Jerome Landfield of New
York, for most valuable suggestions; Prof. V. I. Issaiev of London, for
personal courtesies and for the assistance derived from his valuable
collection of data; Dr. Joseph M. Goldstein, author of _Russia,
Her Economic Past and Future_; Mr. Gregor Alexinsky; Mr. Alexander
Kerensky, former Premier of Russia; Madame Catherine Breshkovsky; Dr.
J. O. Gavronsky of London; the editors of _Pour la Russie_, Paris;
Gen. C. M. Oberoucheff, military commander of the Kiev District under
the Provisional Government; Mr. J. Strumillo, of the Russian Social
Democratic Party; Mr. G. Soloveytchik of Queen’s College, Oxford; to
the Institute for Public Service for the diagram used on page 65;
and, finally, my old friend and colleague of twenty-five years ago,
Col. John Ward, C.B., C.M.G., member of the British House of Commons,
founder of the Navvies’ Union, whose courageous struggle against
Bolshevism has won for him the respect and gratitude of all friends of
Russian freedom.

J. S.

CONTENTS

PAGE
NOTE vii

PREFACE xi

I. WHY HAVE THE BOLSHEVIKI RETAINED POWER? 1

II. THE SOVIETS 8

III. THE SOVIETS UNDER THE BOLSHEVIKI 20

IV. THE UNDEMOCRATIC SOVIET STATE 38

V. THE PEASANTS AND THE LAND 67

VI. THE BOLSHEVIKI AND THE PEASANTS 90

VII. THE RED TERROR 140

VIII. INDUSTRY UNDER SOVIET CONTROL 192

IX. THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY--I 240

X. THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY--II 280

XI. FREEDOM OF PRESS AND ASSEMBLY 309

XII. “THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT” 352

XIII. STATE COMMUNISM AND LABOR CONSCRIPTION 369

XIV. LET THE VERDICT BE RENDERED 410

DOCUMENTS 453

INDEX 473

PREFACE

Like the immortal Topsy, this book may be said to have “just growed.”
In it I have simply assembled in something like an orderly arrangement
a vast amount of carefully investigated evidence concerning the
Bolshevist system and its workings--evidence which, in my judgment,
must compel every honest believer in freedom and democracy to condemn
Bolshevism as a vicious and dangerous form of reaction, subversive
of every form of progress and every agency of civilization and
enlightenment.

I do not discuss theories in this book, except in a very incidental
way. In two earlier volumes my views upon the theories of Bolshevism
have been set forth, clearly and with emphasis. On its theoretical
side, despite the labored pretentiousness of Lenin and his interminable
“Theses,” so suggestive of medieval theology, Bolshevism is the
sorriest medley of antiquated philosophical rubbish and fantastic
speculation to command attention among civilized peoples since
Millerism stirred so many of the American people to a mental process
they mistook for and miscalled thinking.

No one who is capable of honest and straight-forward thinking
upon political and economic questions can read the books of such
Bolshevist writers as Lenin, Trotsky, and Bucharin, and the numerous
proclamations, manifestoes, and decrees issued by the Soviet Government
and the Communist Party, and retain any respect for the Bolsheviki
as thinkers. Neither can any one who is capable of understanding the
essential difference between freedom and despotism read even those
official decrees, programs, and legal codes which they themselves have
caused to be published and doubt that the régime of the Bolsheviki
in Russia is despotic in the extreme. The cretinous-minded admirers
and defenders of Bolshevism, whether they call themselves Liberals,
Radicals, or Socialists--dishonoring thereby words of great and
honorable antecedents--“bawl for freedom in their senseless mood” and,
at the same time, give their hearts’ homage to a monstrous and arrogant
tyranny.

In these pages will be found, I venture to assert, ample and conclusive
evidence to justify to any healthy and rational mind the description of
Bolshevism as “a monstrous and arrogant tyranny.” That is the purpose
of the volume. It is an indictment and arraignment of Bolshevism and
the Bolsheviki at the bar of enlightened public opinion. The evidence
upon which the indictment rests is so largely drawn from official
publications of the Soviet Government and of the Communist Party, and
from the authorized writings of the foremost spokesmen of Russian
Bolshevism, that the book might almost be termed a self-revelation
of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki. Such evidence as I have cited from
non-Bolshevist sources is of minor importance, slight in quantity and
merely corroborative of, or supplementary to, the evidence drawn from
the Bolshevist sources already indicated. Much of the evidence has been
published from time to time in numerous articles, state reports, and
pamphlets, both here and in England, but this is the first volume, I
believe, to bring the material together in a systematic arrangement.

Following the publication of my _Bolshevism_ I found myself called
upon to deliver many addresses upon the subject. Some of these were
given before college and university audiences--at Dartmouth, Princeton,
Columbia, Barnard, and elsewhere--while others were given before a
wide variety of public audiences. The circulation of my book and many
magazine and newspaper articles on the subject, together with the
lectures and addresses, had the result of bringing me a veritable
multitude of questions from all parts of the country. The questions
came from men and women of high estate and of low, ranging from
United States Senators to a group of imprisoned Communists awaiting
deportation. Some of the questions were asked in good faith, to elicit
information; others were obviously asked for quite another purpose.
For a long time it seemed that every statement made in the press about
Bolshevism or the Bolsheviki reached me with questions or challenges
concerning it.

To every question which was asked in apparent good faith I did my
best to reply. When--as often happened--the information was not in my
possession, I invoked the assistance of those of my Russian friends
in Europe and this country who have made it their special task to
keep well informed concerning developments in Russia. These friends
not only replied to my specific questions, but sent me from time to
time practically every item of interest concerning developments in
Russia. As a result, I found myself in the possession of an immense
mass of testimony and evidence of varying value. Fully aware of the
unreliability of much of the material thus placed in my hands, for
my own satisfaction I weeded out all stories based upon hearsay, all
stories told by unknown persons, all rumors and indefinite statements,
and, finally, all stories, no matter by whom told, which were not
confirmed by dependable witnesses. This winnowing process left the
following classes of evidence and testimony: (1) Statements by leading
Bolsheviki, contained in their official press or in publications
authorized by them; (2) reports of activities by the Soviet Government
or its officials, published in the official organs of the government;
(3) formal documents--decrees, proclamations, and the like--issued by
the Soviet Government and its responsible officials; (4) statements
made by well-known Russian Socialists and trades-unionists of high
standing upon facts within their own knowledge, where there was
confirmatory evidence; (5) the testimony of well-known Socialists from
other countries, upon matters of which they had personal knowledge and
concerning which there was confirmatory evidence.

Every scrap of evidence adduced in the following pages belongs to one
or other of the five classes above described. Moreover, the reader can
rest assured that every possible care has been taken to guard against
misquotation and against quotation which, while literally accurate,
nevertheless misrepresents the truth. This is often done by unfairly
separating text from context, for example, and in other ways. I believe
that I can assure the reader of the freedom of this book from that
evil; certainly nothing of the sort has been intentionally included.
While I have accepted as correct and authentic certain translations,
such as the translations of Lenin’s _Soviets at Work_ and his _State
and Revolution_, both of which are largely circulated by pro-Bolshevist
propagandists, and such collections of documents as have been published
in this country by the _Nation_--the Soviet Constitution and certain
Decrees--and by _Soviet Russia_, the official organ of the Soviet
Government in this country, I have had almost every other line of
translated quotation examined and verified by some competent and
trustworthy Russian scholar.

The book does not contain all or nearly all the evidence which has come
into my possession in the manner described. I have purposely omitted
much that was merely harrowing and brutal, as well as sensational
incidents which have no direct bearing upon the struggle in Russia, but
properly belong to the category of crimes arising out of the elemental
passions, which are to be found in every country. Crimes and atrocities
by irresponsible individuals I have passed over in silence, confining
myself to those things which reflect the actual purposes, methods, and
results of the régime itself.

I have not tried to make a sensational book, yet now that it is
finished I feel that it is even worse than that. It seems to me to
be a terrible book. The cumulative effect of the evidence of brutal
oppression and savagery, of political trickery and chicane, of
reckless experimentation, of administrative inefficiency, of corrupt
bureaucratism, of outraged idealism and ambitious despotism, seems to
me as terrible as anything I know--more terrible than the descriptions
of czarism which formerly harrowed our feelings. When I remember the
monstrous evils that have been wrought in the name of Socialism, my
soul is torn by an indescribable agony.

Yet more agonizing still is the consciousness that here in the United
States there are men and women of splendid character and apparent
intelligence whose vision has been so warped by hatred of the evils
of the present system, and by a cunning propaganda, that they are
ready to hail this loathsome thing of hatred, this monstrous tyranny,
as an evangel of fraternalism and freedom; ready to bring upon this
nation--where, despite every shortcoming, we are at least two centuries
ahead of Bolshevized Russia, politically, economically, morally--the
curse which during less than thirty months has afflicted unhappy Russia
with greater ills than fifty years of czarism.

They will not succeed. They shall strive in vain to replace the
generous spirit of Lincoln with the brutal spirit of Lenin. For us
there shall be no dictatorship other than that of our own ever-growing
conscience as a nation, seeking freedom and righteousness in our own
way.

We shall defeat and destroy Bolshevism by keeping the light shining
upon it, revealing its ugliness, its brutality, its despotism. We do
not need to adopt the measures which czarism found so unavailing.
Oppression cannot help us in this fight, or offer us any protection
whatsoever. If we would destroy Bolshevism we must destroy the
illusions which surround it. Once its real character is made known,
once men can see it as it is, we shall not need to fear its spread
among our fellow-citizens. Light, abundant light, is the best agent to
fight Bolshevism.

JOHN SPARGO.

“NESTLEDOWN,”
OLD BENNINGTON, VERMONT,
_May, 1920_.

“THE GREATEST FAILURE
IN ALL HISTORY”

“THE GREATEST FAILURE IN ALL HISTORY”

WHY HAVE THE BOLSHEVIKI RETAINED POWER?

The Bolsheviki are in control of Russia. Never, at any time since
their usurpation of power in November, 1917, have Lenin and Trotsky
and their associates been so free from organized internal opposition
as they are now, after a lapse of more than two and a quarter years.
This is the central fact in the Russian problem. While it is true that
Bolshevist rule is obviously tottering toward its fall, it is equally
true that the anti-Bolshevist forces of Russia have been scattered
like chaff before the wind. While there is plenty of evidence that
the overwhelming mass of the Russian people have been and are opposed
to them, the Bolsheviki rule, nevertheless. This is what many very
thoughtful people who are earnestly seeking to arrive at just and
helpful conclusions concerning Russia find it hard and well-nigh
impossible to understand. Upon every hand one hears the question, “How
is it possible to believe that the Bolsheviki have been able for so
long to maintain and even increase their power against the opposition
of the great mass of the Russian people?”

The complete answer to this question will be developed later, but a
partial and provisional answer may, perhaps, do much to clear the way
for an intelligent and dispassionate study of the manner in which
Bolshevism in Russia has been affected by the acid test of practice.
In the first place, it would be interesting to discuss the naïveté of
the question. Is it a new and unheard-of phenomenon that a despotic
and tyrannical government should increase its strength in spite of
the resentment of the masses? Czarism maintained itself in power for
centuries against the will of the people. If it be objected that only
a minority of the people of Russia actively opposed czarism, and that
the masses as a whole were passive for centuries, no such contention
can be made concerning the period from 1901 to 1906. At that time the
country was aflame with passionate discontent; the people as a whole
were opposed to czarism, yet they lacked the organized physical power
to overthrow it. Czarism ruled by brute force, and the methods which it
developed and used with success have been adopted by the Bolsheviki and
perfected by them.

However, let a veteran Russian revolutionist answer the question:
Gen. C. M. Oberoucheff is an old and honored member of the Party
of Socialists-Revolutionists of Russia and under the old régime
suffered imprisonment and exile on account of his activities in the
revolutionary movement. Under the Provisional Government, while
Kerensky was Premier, he was made Military Commissary of Kiev, at the
request of the local Soviet. General Oberoucheff says:

“Americans often ask the question: ‘How can it be explained that the
Bolsheviki hold power?... Does this not prove that they are supported
by the majority of the people?’ For us Russians the reply to this
question is very simple. The Czars held power for centuries. Is that
proof that their rule was supported by the will of the people? Of
course not. They held power by the rule of blood and iron and did not
rest at all upon the sympathies of the great masses of the people.
The Bolsheviki are retaining their power to-day by the same identical
means.... Russia of the Czars’ time was governed by Blue gendarmes.
Great Russia of to-day is ruled by Red gendarmes. The distinction is
only in color and perhaps somewhat in methods. The methods of the
Red gendarmes are more ruthless and cruel than those of the old Blue
gendarmes.”

The greater part of a year has elapsed since these words were
written by General Oberoucheff. Since that time there have been many
significant changes in Russia, including recently some relaxation of
the brutal oppression. Czarism likewise had its periods of comparative
decency. It still remains true, however, that the rule of the
Bolsheviki rests upon the same basis as that of the old régime. It is,
in fact, only an inverted form of czarism.

As we shall presently see, the precise methods by which monarchism
was so long maintained have been used by the Bolsheviki. The main
support of the old régime was an armed force, consisting of the corps
of gendarmes and special regiments of guards. Under Bolshevism,
corresponding to these, we have the famous Red Guards, certain
divisions of which have been maintained for the express purpose of
dealing with internal disorder and suppressing uprisings. Just as,
under czarism, the guard regiments were specially well paid and
accorded privileges which made them a class apart, so have these Red
Guards of the Bolsheviki enjoyed special privileges, including superior
pay and rations.

Under czarism the _Okhrana_ and the Black Hundreds, together with the
Blue gendarmes, imposed a reign of terror upon the nation. They were
as corrupt as they were cruel. Under the Bolsheviki the Extraordinary
Committees and Revolutionary Tribunals have been just as brutal and
as corrupt as their czaristic predecessors. Under the Bolsheviki the
system of espionage and the use of provocative agents can be fairly
described as a continuance of the methods of the old régime.

Czarism developed an immense bureaucracy; a vast army of petty
officials and functionaries was thus attached to the government. This
bureaucracy was characterized by the graft and corruption indulged in
by its members. They stole from the government and they used their
positions to extort blackmail and graft from the helpless and unhappy
people. In the same manner Bolshevism has developed a new bureaucracy
in Russia, larger than the old, and no less corrupt. As we shall see
later on, the sincere and honest idealists among the Bolsheviki have
loudly protested against this evil. Moreover, the system has become
so burdensome economically that the government itself has become
alarmed. By filling the land with spies and making it almost impossible
for any man to trust his neighbor, by suppressing practically all
non-Bolshevist journals, and by terrorism such as was unknown under the
old régime, the Bolsheviki have maintained themselves in power.

There is a still more important reason why the Bolshevist régime
continues, namely, its own adaptability. Far from being the unbending
and uncompromising devotees of principle they are very generally
regarded as being, the Bolshevist leaders are, above all else,
opportunists. Notwithstanding their adoption of the repressive and
oppressive methods of the old régime, the Bolsheviki could not have
continued in power had they remained steadfast to the economic
theories and principles with which they began. No amount of force
could have continued for so long a system of government based on
economic principles so ruinous. As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviki
have continued to rule Russia because, without any change of mind or
heart, but under pressure of relentless economic necessity, they have
abandoned their theories. The crude communism which Lenin and his
accomplices set out to impose upon Russia by force has been discarded
and flung upon the scrap-pile of politics. That this is true will be
abundantly demonstrated by the testimony of the Bolsheviki themselves.

No study of the reasons for the success of the Bolsheviki can be
regarded as complete which does not take into account the fact that
Russia has been living upon the stored-up resources of the old order.
When the Bolsheviki seized the reins of government there were in
the country large stores of food, of raw materials, of manufactured
and partially manufactured goods. There were also large numbers of
industrial establishments in working order. With these things alone,
even without any augmentation by new production--except, of course,
agricultural production--the nation could for a considerable time
escape utter destruction. With these resources completely in the hands
of the government, any opposition was necessarily placed at a very
great disadvantage. The principal spokesmen of the Bolsheviki have
themselves recognized this from time to time. On January 3, 1920,
_Pravda_, the official organ of the Communist Party--that is, of the
Bolsheviki--said:

We must not forget that hitherto we have been living on the
stores and machinery, the means of production, which we
inherited from the bourgeoisie. We have been using the old
stores of raw material, half-manufactured and manufactured
goods. But these stores are getting exhausted and the machinery
is wearing out more and more. All our victories in the field
will lead to nothing if we do not add to them victories gained
by the hammer, pick, and lathe.

It must be confessed that the continued rule of the Bolsheviki has,
to a very considerable extent, been due to the political ineptitude
and lack of coherence on the part of their opponents. The truth is
that on more than one occasion the overthrow of the Bolsheviki might
easily have been brought about by the Allies if they had dared do it.
The chancelleries of Europe were, at times, positively afraid that
the Bolshevist Government would be overthrown and that there would be
no sort of government to take its place. In the archives of all the
Allied governments there are filed away confidential reports warning
the governments that if the Bolsheviki should be overthrown Russia
would immediately become a vast welter of anarchy. Many European
diplomats and statesmen, upon the strength of such reports, shrugged
their shoulders and consoled themselves with the thought that, however
bad Bolshevist government might be, it was at least better than no
government at all.

Finally, we must not overlook the fact that the mere existence of
millions of people who, finding it impossible to overthrow the
Bolshevist régime, devote their energies to the task of making it
endurable by bribing officials, conspiring to evade oppressive
regulations, and by outward conformity, tends to keep the national life
going, no matter how bad the government.

THE SOVIETS

The first articulate cry of Bolshevism in Russia after the overthrow
of the monarchy was the demand “All power to the Soviets!” which the
Bolshevist leaders raised in the summer of 1917 when the Provisional
Government was bravely struggling to consolidate the democratic
gains of the March Revolution. The Bolsheviki were inspired by that
anti-statism which one finds in the literature of early Marxian
Socialism. It was not the individualistic antagonism to the state of
the anarchist, though easily confounded with and mistaken for it. It
was not motivated by an exaltation of the individual, but that of a
class. The early Marxian Socialists looked upon the modern state, with
its highly centralized authority, as a mere instrument of class rule,
by means of which the capitalist class maintained itself in power and
intensified its exploitation of the wage-earning class. Frederick
Engels, Marx’s great collaborator, described the modern state as being
the managing committee for the capitalist class as a whole.

Naturally, the state being thus identified with capitalist
exploitation, the determination to overthrow the capitalist system
carried with it a like determination to destroy the political state.
Given a victory by the working-class sufficiently comprehensive to
enable it to take possession of the ruling power, the state would
either become obsolete, and die of its own accord, or be forcibly
abolished. This attitude is well and forcibly expressed by Engels in
some well-known passages.

Thus, in his _Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, Engels says:

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a
capitalistic machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal
personification of the total national capital. The more it
proceeds to the taking over of productive forces the more does
it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens
does it exploit.... Whilst the capitalist mode of production
... forces on more and more the transformation of the vast
means of production, already socialized, into state property,
it shows itself the way to accomplish this revolution. The
proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of
production into state property.

What Engels meant is made clear in a subsequent paragraph in the same
work. He argues that as long as society was divided into antagonistic
classes the state was a necessity. The ruling class for the time
being required an organized force for the purpose of protecting its
interest and particularly of forcibly keeping the subject class in
order. Under such conditions, the state could only be properly regarded
as the representative of society as a whole in the narrow sense that
the ruling class itself represented society as a whole. Assuming
the extinction of class divisions and antagonisms, the state would
immediately become unnecessary:

The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes
itself the representative of the whole of society--the
taking possession of the means of production in the name of
society--this is, at the same time, its last independent act as
a state. State interference in social relations becomes, in one
domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself;
the government of persons is replaced by the administration of
things and by the conduct of processes of production. The state
is not “abolished.” _It dies out._

In another work, _The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the
State_, Engels says:

We are now rapidly approaching a stage of evolution in
production in which the existence of classes has not only
ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive fetter on
production. Hence these classes must fall as inevitably they
once rose. The state must irrevocably fall with them. The
society that is to reorganize production on the basis of a
free and equal association of the producers will transfer the
machinery of state where it will then belong: into the museum
of antiquities, by the side of the spinning-wheel and the
bronze ax.

These passages from the classic literature of Marxian Socialism fairly
and clearly express the character of the anti-statism which inspired
the Bolsheviki at the outset. They wanted to develop a type of social
organization in which there would be practically no “government of
persons,” but only the “administration of things” and the “conduct of
the processes of production.” Modern Socialist thinkers have fairly
generally recognized the muddled character of the thinking upon which
this anti-statism rests. How can there be “administration of things”
without “government of persons”? The only meaning that can possibly
be attached to the “administration of things” by the government is
that human relations established through the medium of things are to
be administered or governed. Certainly the “conduct of the processes
of production” without some regulation of the conduct of the persons
engaged in those processes is unthinkable.

We do not need to discuss the theory farther at this time. It is
enough to recognize that the primitive Marxian doctrine which we have
outlined required that state interference with the individual and with
social relations be reduced to a minimum, if not wholly abolished. It
is a far cry from that conception to the system of conscript labor
recently introduced, and the Code of Labor Laws of Soviet Russia,
which legalizes industrial serfdom and adscription and makes even
the proletarian subject to a more rigid and despotic “government of
persons” than has existed anywhere since the time when feudalism
flourished.

The Bolsheviki believed that they saw in the Soviets of
factory-workers, peasants, and Socialists the beginnings of a form
of social organization which would supplant the state, lacking its
coercive features and better fitted for the administration of the
economic life of the nation. The first Soviet of Workmen’s Deputies
appeared in October, 1905, in Petrograd, at the time of the abortive
revolution. The idea of organizing such a council of workmen’s
representatives originated with the Mensheviki, the faction of the
Social Democratic Party opposed to the Bolsheviki. The sole aim of the
Soviet was to organize the revolutionary forces and sentiment. But,
during the course of its brief existence, it did much in the way of
relieving the distress. The Socialists-Revolutionists joined with the
Mensheviki in the creation of this first Soviet, but the Bolsheviki
were bitterly opposed to it, denouncing it as “the invention of
semi-bourgeois parties to enthrall the proletariat in a non-partizan
swamp.” When the Soviet was well under way, however, and its success
was manifest, the Bolsheviki entered it and became active participants
in its work. With the triumph of czarism, this first Soviet was
crushed, most of its leaders being banished to Siberia.

Even before the formation of the Provisional Government was completed,
in March, 1917, the revolutionary working-class leaders of Petrograd
had organized a Soviet, or council, which they called the Council
of Workmen’s Deputies of Petrograd. Like all the similar Soviets
which sprang up in various parts of the country, this was a very
loose organization and very far from being a democratic body of
representatives. Its members were chosen at casual meetings held in the
factories and workshops and sometimes on the streets. No responsible
organizations arranged or governed the elections. Anybody could
call a mass-meeting, in any manner he pleased, and those who came
selected--usually by show of hands--such “deputies” as they pleased.
If only a score attended and voted in a factory employing hundreds,
the deputies so elected represented that factory in the Soviet. This
description equally applies to practically all the other Soviets which
sprang up in the industrial centers, the rural villages, and in the
army itself. Among the soldiers at the front company Soviets, and even
trench Soviets, were formed. In the cities it was common for groups
of soldiers belonging to the same company, meeting on the streets by
accident, to hold impromptu street meetings and form Soviets. There
was, of course, more order and a better chance to get representative
delegates when the meetings were held in barracks.

Not only were the Soviets far from being responsible democratically
organized representative bodies; quite as significant is the fact that
the deputies selected by the factory-workers were, in many instances,
not workmen at all, but lawyers, university professors, lecturers,
authors and journalists, professional politicians, and so on. Many
of the men who played prominent rôles in the Petrograd Soviet, for
example, as delegates of the factory-workers, were Intellectuals of
the type described. Any well-known revolutionary leader who happened
to be in the public eye at the moment might be selected by a group of
admirers in a factory as their delegate. It was thus that Kerensky, the
brilliant lawyer, found himself a prominent member of the Petrograd
Soviet of Workmen’s Deputies, and that, later on, Trotsky, the
journalist, and Lenin, the scholar, became equally prominent.

It was to such bodies as these that the Bolsheviki wanted to transfer
all the power of the government--political, military, and economic.
The leaders of the Provisional Government, when they found their
task too heavy, urged the Petrograd Soviet to take up the burden,
which it declined to do. That the Soviets were needed in the existing
circumstances, and that, as auxiliaries to the Provisional Government
and the Municipal Council, they were capable of rendering great service
to the democratic cause, can hardly be questioned by any one familiar
with the conditions that prevailed. The Provisional Government, chosen
from the Duma, was not, at first, a democratic body in the full
sense of that word. It did not represent the working-people. It was
essentially representative of the bourgeoisie and it was quite natural,
therefore, that in the Soviets there was developed a very critical
attitude toward the Provisional Government.

Before very long, however, the Provisional Government became more
democratic through the inclusion of a large representation of the
working-class parties, men who were chosen by and directly responsible
to the Petrograd Soviet. This arrangement meant that the Soviet had
definitely entered into co-operation with the Provisional Government;
that in the interest of the success of the Revolution the working-class
joined hands with the bourgeoisie. This was the condition when, in
the summer of 1917, the Bolsheviki raised the cry “All power to the
Soviets!” There was not even the shadow of a pretense that the
Provisional Government was either undemocratic or unrepresentative.
At the same time the new municipal councils were functioning. These
admirable bodies had been elected upon the basis of universal,
equal, direct, and secret suffrage. Arrangements were far advanced
for holding--under the authority of the democratically constituted
municipal councils and Zemstvos--elections for a Constituent Assembly,
upon the same basis of generous democracy: universal, equal, direct,
and secret suffrage, with proportional representation. It will be seen,
therefore, that the work of creating a thoroughly democratic government
for Russia was far advanced and proceeding with great rapidity. Instead
of the power of government being placed in the hands of thoroughly
democratic representative bodies, the Bolsheviki wanted it placed in
the hands of the hastily improvised and loosely organized Soviets.

At first the Bolsheviki had professed great faith in, and solicitude
for, the Constituent Assembly, urging its immediate convocation. In
view of their subsequent conduct, this has been regarded as evidence
of their hypocrisy and dishonesty. It has been assumed that they never
really wanted a Constituent Assembly at all. Of some of the leaders
this is certainly true; of others it is only partially true. Trotsky,
Lenin, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and others, during the months of June and
July, 1917, opposed the policy of the Provisional Government in making
elaborate preparations for holding the elections to the Constituent
Assembly. They demanded immediate convocation of the Constituent
Assembly, upon the basis of “elections” similar to those of the
Soviets, knowing well that this would give them an irresponsible
mass-meeting, easily swayed and controlled by the demagoguery and
political craft of which they were such perfect masters. Had they
succeeded in their efforts at that time, the Constituent Assembly
would not have been dispersed, in all probability. It would have
been as useful an instrument for their purpose as the Soviets. When
they realized that the Constituent Assembly was to be a responsible
representative body, a deliberative assembly, they began their
agitation to have its place taken by the Soviets. They were perfectly
well aware that these could be much more easily manipulated and
controlled by an aggressive minority than a well-planned, thoroughly
representative assembly could be.

The Bolsheviki wanted to use the Soviets as instruments. In this
simple statement of fact there is implicit a distinction between
Soviet government and Bolshevism, a distinction that is too often
lost sight of. Bolshevism may be defined either as an end to be
attained--communism--or as a policy, a method of attaining the desired
end. Neither the Soviet as an institution nor Soviet government, as
such, had any necessary connection with the particular goal of the
Bolsheviki or their methods. That the Bolsheviki in Russia and in
Hungary have approved Soviet government as the form of government best
adapted to the realization of their program, and found the Soviet a
desirable instrument, must not be regarded as establishing either
the identity of Bolshevism and Soviet government or a necessary
relation between the Soviet and the methods of the Bolsheviki. The same
instrument is capable of being used by the conservative as well as by
the radical.

In this respect the Soviet system of government is like ordinary
parliamentary government. This, also, is an instrument which may be
used by either the reactionary or the revolutionist. The defender of
land monopoly and the Single-taxer can both use it. To reject the
Soviet system simply because it is capable of being used to attain the
ends of Bolshevism, or even because the advocates of Bolshevism find
it better adapted to their purpose than the political systems with
which we are familiar, is extremely foolish. Such a conclusion is as
irrational as that of the superficial idealists who renounce all faith
in organized government and its agencies because they can be used
oppressively, and are in fact sometimes so used.

It is at least possible, and, in the judgment of the present writer,
not at all improbable, that the Soviet system will prove, in Russia
and elsewhere, inclined to conservatism in normal circumstances.
Trades-unions are capable of revolutionary action, but under normal
conditions they incline to a cautious conservatism. The difference
between a trades-union and a factory Soviet is, primarily, that the
former groups the workers of a trade and disregards the fact that they
work in different places, while the latter groups the workers in a
particular factory and disregards the fact that they pursue different
trades or grades of labor. What is there in this difference to warrant
the conclusion that the factory-unit form of organization is more
likely to adopt communist ideals or violent methods than the other form
of organization? Surely the fact that the Bolsheviki have found it
necessary to restrict and modify the Soviet system, even to the extent
of abolishing some of its most important features, disposes of the
mistaken notion that Bolshevism and the Soviet system are inseparable.

It is not without significance that the leading theoretician of
Bolshevism, Lenin, on the basis of pure theory, opposed the Soviets
at first. Nor is the fact that many of the bitterest opponents of
Bolshevism in Russia, among the Socialists-Revolutionists, the
Mensheviki, the Populists, the leaders of the co-operatives and the
trades-unions, are stanch believers in and defenders of the Soviet
system of government, and confidently believe that it will be the
permanent form of Russian government.

For reasons which will be developed in subsequent chapters, the present
writer does not accept this view. The principal objection to the Soviet
system, as such, is not that it is inseparable from Bolshevism, that
it must of necessity be associated with the aims and methods of the
latter, but that--unless greatly modified and limited--it must prove
inefficient to the point of vital danger to society. This does not
mean that organizations similar in structure to the Soviets can have
no place in the government or in industrial management. In some manner
the democratization of industry is to be attained in a not far distant
future. When that time comes it will be found that the ideas which gave
impulse to syndicalism and to Soviet government have found concrete
expression in a form wholly beneficent.

III

THE SOVIETS UNDER THE BOLSHEVIKI

After the _coup d’état_, the Soviets continued to be elected in the
same haphazard manner as before. Even after the adoption, in July,
1918, of the Constitution, which made the Soviets the basis of
the superstructure of governmental power, there was no noticeable
improvement in this respect. Never, at any time, since the Bolsheviki
came into power, have the Soviets attained anything like a truly
representative character. The Constitution of the Russian Socialist
Federal Soviet Republic stamps it as the most undemocratic and
oligarchic of the great modern nations. The city Soviets are composed
of delegates elected by the employees of factories and workshops and
by trades and professional unions, including associations of mothers
and housewives. The Constitution does not prescribe the methods of
election, these being determined by the local Soviets themselves.
In the industrial centers most of the elections take place at open
meetings in the factories, the voting being done by show of hands. In
view of the elaborate system of espionage and the brutal repression
of all hostile criticism, it is easy to understand that such a
system of voting makes possible and easy every form of corruption and
intimidation.

The whole system of government resulting from these methods proved
unrepresentative. A single illustration will make this quite plain:

Within four days of the Czar’s abdication, the workers of Perm, in
the Government of the Urals, organized a Soviet--the Urals Workers’
and Soldiers’ Soviet. At the head of it, as president, was Jandarmov,
a machinist, who had been active in the Revolution of 1905, a Soviet
worker and trades-unionist, many times imprisoned under the old
régime. This Soviet supplemented and co-operated with the Provisional
Government, worked for a democratic Constituent Assembly, and, after
the first few days of excitement had passed, greatly increased
production in the factories. But when the Bolshevist régime was
established, after the adoption of the Constitution, the Government of
the Urals, with its four million inhabitants, did not represent, even
on the basis of the Soviet figures, more than 72,000 workers. That was
the number of workers supposedly represented by the delegates of the
Soviet Government. As a matter of fact, in that number was included
the anti-Bolshevist strength, the workers who had been outvoted or
intimidated, as the case might be. When the peasants elected delegates
they were refused seats, because they were known to be, or believed
to be, anti-Bolshevists. This is the much-vaunted system of Soviet
“elections” concerning which so many of our self-styled Liberals have
been lyrically eloquent.

Of course, even under the conditions described, anti-Bolshevists were
frequently elected to the Soviets. It was a very general practice, in
the early days of the Bolshevist régime, to quite arbitrarily “cleanse”
the Soviets of these “undesirable counter-revolutionaries,” most of
whom were Socialists. In December, 1917, the Soviets in Ufa, Saratov,
Samara, Kazan, and Jaroslav were compelled, under severe penalties, _to
dismiss their non-Bolshevist members_; in January, 1918, the same thing
took place at Perm and at Ekaterinburg; and in February, 1918, the
Soviets of Moscow and Petrograd were similarly “cleansed.”

It was a very ordinary occurrence for Soviets to be suppressed because
their “state of mind” was not pleasing to the Bolsheviki in control of
the central authority. In a word, when a local Soviet election resulted
in a majority of Socialists-Revolutionists or other non-Bolshevist
representatives being chosen, the Council of the People’s Commissaries
dissolved the Soviet and ordered the election of a new one. Frequently
they used troops--generally Lettish or Chinese--to enforce their
orders. Numerous examples of this form of despotism might be cited
from the Bolshevist official press. For example, in April, 1918, the
elections to the Soviet of Jaroslav, a large industrial city north of
Moscow, resulted in a large majority of anti-Bolshevist representatives
being elected. The Council of the People’s Commissaries sent Lettish
troops to dissolve the Soviet and hold a new “election.” This so
enraged the people that they gave a still larger majority for the
anti-Bolshevist parties. Then the Council of the People’s Commissaries
issued a decree stating that as the working-class of Jaroslav had twice
proved their unfitness for self-government they would not be permitted
to have a Soviet at all! The town was proclaimed to be “a nest of
counter-revolutionaries.” Again and again the workers of Jaroslav tried
to set up local self-government, and each time they were crushed by
brutal and bloody violence.[1]

[1] The salient facts in this paragraph are condensed from _L’Ouvrier
Russe_, May, 1918. See also Bullard, _The Russian Pendulum--Autocracy,
Democracy, Bolshevism_, p. 92, for an account of the same events.

L. I. Goldman, member of the Central Committee of the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party, made a report to that body concerning one of
these Jaroslav uprisings in which he wrote:

The population of that city consists mainly of workmen. Having
the assistance of a military organization under the leadership
of General Alexiev and General Savinkov, the laborers of all
the plants and factories took part in the uprising. Before the
uprising began the leaders declared that they would not allow
it unless they had the sympathy of the laborers and other
classes. Trotsky sent a message stating that if the revolt
could not be quelled he would go as far as having the city of
Jaroslav with its 40,000 inhabitants completely destroyed....
Though surrounded by 17,000 Red Guards, Jaroslav resisted, but
was finally captured by the Bolsheviki, due to the superiority
of their artillery. The uprising was suppressed by bloody and
terrible means. The spirit of destruction swayed over Jaroslav,
which is one of the oldest Russian cities.

Bearing in mind that the sole aim of the people of Jaroslav--led by
Socialist workmen--was to establish their own local self-government,
the inviolability of the Soviet elections, let us examine a few of
the many reports concerning the struggle published in the official
Bolshevist organs. Under the caption “Official Bulletin,” _Izvestia_
published, on July 21, 1918, this item:

At Jaroslav the adversary, gripped in the iron ring of our
troops, has tried to enter into negotiations. _The reply has
been given under the form of redoubled artillery fire._

Four days later, on July 25th, _Izvestia_ published a military
proclamation addressed to the inhabitants of Jaroslav, from which the
following passage is taken:

The General Staff notifies to the population of Jaroslav that
all those who desire to live are invited to abandon the town in
the course of twenty-four hours and to meet near the America
Bridge. Those who remain will be treated as insurgents, _and
no quarter will be given to any one_. Heavy artillery fire and
gas-bombs will be used against them. _All those who remain will
perish in the ruins of the town with the insurrectionists,
the traitors, and the enemies of the Workers’ and Peasants’
Revolution._

On the day following, July 26th, _Izvestia_ published an article
to the effect that “after minute questionings and full inquiry” a
special commission of inquiry appointed to investigate the Jaroslav
insurrection had listed three hundred and fifty persons as having
“taken an active part in the insurrection and had relations with the
Czechoslovaks,” and that the commissioners had ordered the whole three
hundred and fifty to be shot.

Throughout the summer the struggle went on, and in the _Severnaya
Communa_, September 10, 1918, the following despatch from Jaroslav was
published:

JAROSLAV, _9th September_.--In the whole of the Jaroslav
government a strict registration of the bourgeoisie and its
partizans has been organized. Manifestly anti-Soviet elements
are being shot; suspected persons are interned in concentration
camps; non-working sections of the population are subjected to
forced labor.

Here is further evidence, from official Bolshevist sources, that when
the Soviet elections went against them the Bolshevist Government
simply dissolved the offending Soviets. Here are two despatches from
_Izvestia_, from the issues of July 28 and August 3, 1918, respectively:

KAZAN, _July 26th_.--_As the important offices in the Soviet
were occupied by Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left, the
Extraordinary Commission has dissolved the Provisional Soviet.
The governmental power is now represented by a Revolutionary
Committee._

KAZAN, _August 1st_.--The state of mind of the workmen is
revolutionary. _If the Mensheviki dare to carry on their
propaganda death menaces them._

By way of confirmation we have the following, from _Pravda_, August 6,
1918:

KAZAN, _August 4th_.--The Provisional Congress of the Soviets
of the Peasants has been dissolved because of the absence from
it of poor peasants and _because its state of mind is obviously
counter-revolutionary_.

Whenever a city Soviet was thus suppressed a military revolutionary
committee, designated by the Bolsheviki, was set up in its place.
To these committees the most arbitrary powers were given. Generally
composed of young soldiers from distant parts, over whom there was
practically no restraint, these committees frequently indulged in
frightful acts of violence and spoliation. Not infrequently the
Central Government, after disbanding a local Soviet, would send from
places hundreds of miles away, under military protection, members of
the Communist Party, who were designated as the executive committee
of the Soviet for that locality. There was not even a pretense that
they had been elected by anybody. Thus it was in Tumen: Protected by
a convoy of eight hundred Red Guards, who remained there to enforce
their authority, a group of members of the Communist Party arrived from
Ekaterinburg and announced that they were the executive committee of
the Soviet of Tumen where, in fact, no Soviet existed. This was not at
all an unusual occurrence.

The suppression by force of those Soviets which were not absolutely
subservient to the Central Bolshevik Government went on as long as
there were any such Soviets. This was especially true in the rural
villages among the peasantry. The following statement is by an English
trades-unionist, H. V. Keeling, a member of the Lithographic Artists’
and Engravers’ Society (an English trades-union), who worked in Russia
for five years--1914-19:

In the villages conditions were often quite good, due to the
forming of a local Soviet by the inhabitants who were not
Bolshevik. The villagers elected the men whom they knew, and as
long as they were left alone things proceeded much as usual.

Soon, however, a whisper would reach the district Commissar
that the Soviet was not politically straight; he would then
come with some Red soldiers and dissolve the committee and
order another election, often importing Bolshevik supporters
from the towns, and these men the villagers were instructed
to elect as their committee. Resistance was often made and an
army of Red Guards sent to break it down. Pitched battles often
took place, and _in one case of which I can speak from personal
knowledge twenty-one of the inhabitants were shot, including
the local telegraph-girl operator who had refused to telegraph
for reinforcements_.

The practice of sending young soldiers into the villages which
were not Bolshevik was very general; care was taken to send men
who did not come from the district, so that any scruples might
be overcome. Even then it would happen that after the soldiers
had got food they would make friends with the people, and so
compel the Commissar to send for another set of Red Guards.[2]

[2] _Bolshevism_, by H. V. Keeling, pp. 185-186.

In the chapter dealing with the relation of the Bolsheviki to the
peasants and the land question abundant corroboration of Mr. Keeling’s
testimony is given. The Bolsheviki have, however, found an easier way
to insure absolute control of the Soviets: as a general rule they do
not depend upon these crude methods of violence. Instead, they have
adopted the delightfully simple method of permitting no persons to
be placed in nomination whose names are not approved by them. As a
first step the anti-Bolshevist parties, such as the Menshevist Social
Democrats, Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right and Center, and the
Constitutional Democrats, were excluded by the issuance of a decree
that “the right to nominate candidates belongs exclusively to the
parties of electors which file the declaration that they acknowledge
the Soviet authorities.”

The following resolution was adopted by the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee on June 14, 1918:

The representatives of the Social Revolutionary Party (the
Right wing and the Center) _are excluded_, and at the same time
all Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’, and Cossacks’
Deputies are recommended to expel from their midst all
representatives of this faction.

This resolution, which was duly carried into effect, was strictly in
accordance with the clause in the Constitution of the Soviet Republic
which provides that “guided by the interests of the working-class as
a whole, the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic deprives all
individuals and groups of rights which could be utilized by them to the
detriment of the Socialist Revolution.” Thus entire political parties
have been excluded from the Soviets by the party in power. It is a
noteworthy fact that many of those persons in this country, Socialists
and others, who have been most vigorous in denouncing the expulsion
from the New York Legislature of the elected representatives of the
Socialist Party are, at the same time, vigorous supporters of the
Bolsheviki. Comment upon the lack of moral and intellectual integrity
thus manifested is unnecessary.

Let us consider the testimony of three other witnesses of
unquestionable competence: J. E. Oupovalov, chairman of the Votkinsk
Metal Workers’ Union, is a Social Democrat, a working-man. He was a
member of the local Soviet of Nizhni-Novgorod. Three times under Czar
Nicholas II this militant Socialist and trades-unionist was imprisoned
for his activities on behalf of his class. Here, then, is a witness
who is at once a Russian, a Socialist, a trades-unionist, and a
wage-worker, and he writes of matters of which he has intimate personal
knowledge. He does not indulge in generalities, but is precise and
specific in his references to events, places, and dates:

In February, 1919, after the conclusion of the shameful
Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Soviet of Workmen’s Delegates met
in Nizhni-Novgorod for the purpose of electing delegates
to the All-Russian Congress, which would be called upon to
decide the question of peace. The Bolsheviks and the Left
Social-Revolutionaries obtained a chance majority of two
votes in the Soviet. _Taking advantage of this, they deprived
the Social Democrats and Right Social-Revolutionaries of the
right to take part in the election of delegates._ The expelled
members of the Soviet assembled at a separate meeting and
decided to elect independently a proportionate number of
delegates. _But the Bolsheviks immediately sent a band of armed
Letts and we were dispersed._

In March, 1918, the Sormovo workmen demanded the re-election
of the Soviet. After a severe struggle the re-elections took
place, the Mensheviks and the Social-Revolutionaries obtaining
a majority. But the former Bolshevist Soviet _refused to hand
over the management to the newly elected body, and the latter
was dispersed by armed Red Guards on April 8th_. Similar events
took place in Nizhni-Novgorod, Kovrov, Izhevsk, Koloma, and
other places. Who, therefore, would venture to assert that
power in Russia belongs to the Soviets?

Equally pertinent and impressive is the testimony of J. Strumillo, also
a Social Democrat and trades-unionist. This militant working-man is a
member of the Social Democratic Party, to which both Lenin and Trotsky
formerly belonged. He is also a wage-worker, an electric fitter. He is
an official of the Metal Workers’ Union and a member of the Hospital
Funds Board for the town of Perm. He says:

... the Labor masses began to draw away from Bolshevism. This
became particularly evident after the Brest-Litovsk Peace,
which exposed the treacherous way in which the Bolsheviks
had handed over the Russian people to the German Junkers.
Everywhere re-elections began to take place for the Soviets
of Workmen’s Delegates and for the trades-unions. On seeing
that the workmen were withdrawing from them, the Bolsheviks
started by forbidding the re-elections to be held, and finally
_declared that the Bolsheviks alone had the right to elect
and be elected. Thus an enormous number of workmen were
disfranchised...._ The year 1918 saw the complete suppression
of the Labor movement and of the Social Democratic Party.
_All over Russia an order was issued from Moscow to exclude
representatives of the Social Democratic Party from the
Soviets, and the party itself was declared illegal._

V. M. Zenzinov, a member of the Central Committee of the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionists, came to this country in February, 1919, and
spent several weeks, during which time the present writer made his
acquaintance. Zenzinov was many times arrested under czarism for his
revolutionary activities, and more than once sent into Siberian exile.
He was a member of the Constituent Assembly, and later, in September,
1918, at the Ufa Conference, was elected member of the Directory. It
will be remembered that the Directory was forcibly overthrown and the
Kolchak Government set up in its place. Zenzinov is an anti-Bolshevik,
but his testimony is not to be set aside on that account. He says: “The
Soviet Government is not even a true Soviet régime, for the Bolsheviki
have expelled the representatives of all the other political parties
from the Soviets, either by force or by other similar means. The Soviet
Government is a government of the Bolshevist Party, pure and simple; it
is a party dictatorship--not even a dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The apologists for the Bolsheviki in this country have frequently
denied the charge that the Soviets were thus packed and that
anti-Bolshevist parties were not given equal rights to secure
representation in them. Of the facts there can be no question, but
it is interesting to find such a well-known pro-Bolshevist writer
as Mr. Arthur Ransome stating, in the London _Daily News_, January
11, 1919, that “the Mensheviki now stand definitely on the Soviet
platform” and that “a decree has accordingly been passed _readmitting_
them to the Soviets.” Does not the statement that a decree had been
passed “readmitting” this Socialist faction to the Soviets constitute
an admission that until the passing of the decree mentioned that
faction, at least, had been denied representation in the Soviets? Yet
this same Mr. Ransome, in view of this fact, which was well known to
most students of Russian conditions, and of which he can hardly have
been ignorant, addressed his eloquent plea to the people of America
on behalf of the Soviet Government as the true representative of the
Russian people!

Even the trades-unions are not wholly assured of the right of
representation in the Soviets. Only “if their declared relations to the
Soviet Government are approved by the Soviet authorities” can they vote
or nominate candidates. Trades-unions may solemnly declare that they
“acknowledge the Soviet authorities,” but if their immediate relations
with the People’s Commissaries are not good--if they are engaged in
strikes, for example--there is little chance of their getting the
approval of the Soviet authorities, without which they cannot vote.
Finally, no union, party, faction, or group can nominate whomever it
pleases; all candidates must be acceptable to, and approved by, the
central authority!

Numerous witnesses have testified that the Soviets under Bolshevism are
“packed”; that they are not freely elected bodies, in many cases. Thus
H. V. Keeling writes:

The elections for the various posts in our union and local
Soviet were an absolute farce. I had a vote and naturally
consulted with friends whom to vote for. They laughed at me and
said it was all arranged, “we have been told who to vote for.”
I knew some of these “nominated” men quite well, and will go no
farther than saying that they were not the best workmen. It is
a simple truth that no one except he be a Bolshevik was allowed
to be elected for any post.[3]

[3] Keeling, _op. cit._, p. 159.

In _A Memorandum on Certain Aspects of the Bolshevist Movement in
Russia_, published by the State Department of the United States,
January, 1920, the following statement by an unnamed Russian appears in
a report dated July 2, 1919:

Discontent and hatred against the Bolsheviks are now so strong
that a shock or the knowledge of approaching help would
suffice to make the people rise and annihilate the Communists.
Considering this discontent and hatred, it would seem that
elections to different councils should produce candidates of
other parties. Nevertheless all councils consist of Communists.
The explanation is very plain. That freedom of election of
which the Bolsheviks write and talk so much consists in the
free election of certain persons, a list of which had already
been prepared. For instance, if in one district six delegates
have to be elected, seven to eight names are mentioned, of
which six can be chosen. Very characteristic in this respect
were the elections February last in the district of ----,
Moscow Province, where I have one of my estates. Nearly all
voters, about 200, of which twelve Communists, came to the
district town. Seven delegates had to be elected and only seven
names were on the prepared list, naturally all Communists.
The local Soviet invited the twelve communistic voters to a
house, treated them with food, tea, and sugar, and gave each
ten rubles per day; the others received nothing, not even
housing. But they, knowing what they had to expect from former
experiences, had provided for such an emergency and decided
to remain to the end. The day of election was fixed and put
off from day to day. After four postponements the Soviet saw
no way out. The result was that the seven delegates elected
by all against twelve votes belonged to the Octobrists and
Constitutional-Democrats. But these seven and a number of the
wealthier voters were immediately arrested as agitators against
the Soviet Republic. New elections were announced three days
later, but this time the place was surrounded by machine-guns.
The next day official papers announced the unanimous election
of Communists in the district of Verea. After a short time
peasant revolts started. To put down these, Chinese and Letts
were sent and about 300 peasants were killed. Then began
arrests, but it is not known how many were executed.

Finally, there is the testimony of the workman, Menshekov, member
of the Social Democratic Party, who was himself given an important
position in one of the largest factories of Russia, the Ijevsky
factory, in the Urals, when the Bolsheviki assumed control. This simple
workman was not, and is not, a “reactionary monarchist,” but a Social
Democrat. He belonged to the same party as Lenin and Trotsky until the
withdrawal of these men and their followers and the creation of the
Communist Party. Menshekov says:

One of the principles which the Bolsheviki proposed is rule by
the Workers’ Councils. In June, 1918, we were told to elect
one of 135 delegates. We did, and only fifty pro-Bolsheviki
got in. _The Bolshevist Government was dissatisfied with
this result and ordered a second election._ This time only
twenty pro-Bolsheviki were elected. Now, I happen to have been
elected a member of this Workers’ Council, from which I was
further elected to sit on the Executive Council. According
to the Bolsheviki’s own principle, the Executive Council has
to do the whole administration. Everything is under it. But
the Bolshevist Government withheld this right from us. For
two weeks we sat and did nothing; then the Bolsheviki solved
the problem for themselves. They arrested some of us--I was
arrested myself--and, instead of an elected Council, _the Red
Government appointed a Council of selected Communists_, and
formed there, as everywhere, a special privileged class.[4]

[4] Menshekov’s account is from a personal communication to the present
writer, who has carefully verified the statements made in it.

All such charges have been scouted by the defenders of the Bolsheviki
in this country and in England. On March 22, 1919, the _Dyelo Naroda_,
organ of the Socialists-Revolutionists, reproduced the following
official document, which fully sustains the accusation that the
ordering of the “election” of certain persons to important offices is
not “an invention of the capitalist press”:

Order of the Department of Information and Instruction of the
Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Peasants’
Delegates of the Melenkovski District:

No. 994. Town of Melenki (Prov. of Vladimir)

Feb. 25, 1919

To the Voinovo Agricultural Council:

The Provincial Department instructs you, on the basis of the
Constitution of the Soviet (Russian Socialist Federative Soviet
Republic). Section 43, Sub-section 6, letter _a_, to proceed
without fail with elections for an Agricultural Executive
Committee.

The following _must be elected_ to the committee: As president,
Nikita Riabov; as member, Ivan Soloviev; and as secretary,
Alexander Krainov. These people, as may be gathered from
the posts to which they are named, _must be elected without
fail_. The non-fulfilment of this Order will result in those
responsible being severely punished. Acknowledge the carrying
out of these instructions to Provincial Headquarters by express.

_Head of Provincial Section._

[Signed] J. NAZAROV.

Surely there never was a greater travesty of representative government
than this--not even under czarism! This is worse than anything that
obtained in the old “rotten boroughs” of England before the great
Reform Act. Yet our “Liberals” and “Radicals” hail this vicious
reactionary despotism with gladness.

If it be thought that the judgment of the present writer is too
harsh, he is quite content to rest upon the judgment pronounced by
such a sympathizer as Mr. Isaac Don Levine has shown himself to be.
In the New York _Globe_, January 5, 1920, Mr. Levine said: “To-day
Soviet Russia is a dictatorship, not of the proletariat, but for
the proletariat. It certainly is not democracy.” And again: “_The
dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia is really a dictatorship of
the Bolshevist or Communist Party._ This is the great change wrought
in Soviet Russia since 1918. _The Soviets ceased functioning as
parliamentary bodies._ Soviet elections, which were frequent in 1918,
are very rare now. In Russia, where things are moving so fast and
opinions are changing so rapidly, the majority of the present Soviets
are obsolete and do not represent the present view of the masses.”

If the government is really a dictatorship of the Communist
Party--which does not include in its membership 1 per cent. of
the people of Russia--if the Soviets have ceased functioning as
parliamentary bodies, if the majority of the Soviets are obsolete and
do not represent the present view of the masses, the condemnation
expressed in this chapter is completely justified.

THE UNDEMOCRATIC SOVIET STATE

Mr. Lincoln Steffens is a most amiable idealist who possesses an
extraordinary genius for idealizing commonplace and even sordid
realities. He can always readily idealize a perfectly rotten egg into a
perfectly good omelet. It is surely significant that, in spite of his
very apparent efforts to justify and even glorify the Soviet Government
and the men who have imposed it upon Russia, even Mr. Steffens has to
admit its autocratic character. He says:

The soviet form of government, which sprang up so spontaneously
all over Russia, is established.

This is not a paper thing; not an invention. Never planned, it
has not yet been written into the forms of law. It is not even
uniform. It is full of faults and difficulties; clumsy, and in
its final development it is not democratic. The present Russian
Government is the most autocratic government I have ever seen.
_Lenin, head of the Soviet Government, is farther removed from
the people than the Czar was, or than any actual ruler in
Europe is._

The people in a shop or an industry are a soviet. These little
informal soviets elect a local soviet; which elects delegates
to the city or country (community) soviet; which elects
delegates to the government (State) soviet. The government
soviets together elect delegates to the All-Russian Soviet,
which elects commissionnaires (who correspond to our Cabinet,
or to a European minority). And these commissionnaires finally
elect Lenin. He is thus five or six removes from the people. To
form an idea of his stability, independence, and power, think
of the process that would have to be gone through with by the
people to remove him and elect a successor. A majority of all
the soviets in all Russia would have to be changed in personnel
or opinion, recalled, or brought somehow to recognize and
represent the altered will of the people.[5]

[5] Report of Lincoln Steffens, laid before the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the United States Senate, September, 1919. Published in
_The Bullitt Mission to Russia_, pp. 111-112. Italics mine.

This is a very moderate estimate of the government which Lenin and
Trotsky and their associates have imposed upon Russia by the old
agencies--blood and iron. Mr. Steffens is not quite accurate in his
statement that the Soviet form of government “has not yet been written
into the forms of law.” The report from which the above passage is
quoted bears the date of April 2, 1919; at that time there was in
existence, and widely known even outside of Russia, the Constitution
of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, which purports to
be “the Soviet form of government ... written into the forms of law.”
Either it is that or it is a mass of meaningless verbiage. There
existed, too, at that time, a very plethora of laws which purported to
be the written forms of Soviet government, and as such were published
by the Bolshevist Government of Russia. The Fundamental Law of
Socialization of the Land, which went into effect in September, 1918;
the law decreeing the Abolition of Classes and Ranks, dated November
10, 1917; the law creating Regional and Local Boards of National
Economy, dated December 23, 1917; the law creating The People’s Court,
November 24, 1917; the Marriage and Divorce Laws, December 18, 1917;
the Eight Hour Law, October 29, 1917, and the Insurance Law, November
29, 1917, are a few of the bewildering array of laws and decrees which
seem to indicate that the Soviet form of government has “been written
into the forms of law.”

It is in no hypercritical spirit that attention is called to this
rather remarkable error in the report of Mr. Steffens. It is because
the Soviet form of government has “been written into the forms of law”
with so much thoroughness and detail that we are enabled to examine
Bolshevism at its best, as its protagonists have conceived it, and
not merely as it appears in practice, in its experimental stage,
with all its mistakes, abuses, and failures. After all, a written
constitution is a formulation of certain ideals to be attained and
certain principles to be applied as well as very imperfect human beings
can do it. Given a worthy ideal, it would be possible to make generous
allowance for the deficiencies of practice; to believe that these would
be progressively overcome and more or less constant and steady progress
made in the direction of the ideal. On the other hand, when the ideal
itself is inferior to the practice, when by reason of the good sense
and sound morality of the people the actual political life proves
superior to the written constitution and laws, it is not difficult to
appreciate the fact. In such circumstances we are not compelled to
discredit the right practice in order to condemn the wrong theory.
It is true that as a general rule mankind sets its ideals beyond its
immediate reach; but it is also true that men sometimes surpass their
ideals. Most men’s creeds are superior to their deeds, but there are
many men whose deeds are vastly better than their creeds.

Similarly, while the political life of nations generally falls below
the standards set in their formal constitutions and laws, exceptions
to this rule are by no means rare. Constitutions are generally framed
by political theorists and idealists whose inveterate habit it is to
overrate the mental and moral capacity of the great majority of human
beings and to underrate the force of selfishness, ignorance, and other
defects of imperfect humanity. On the other hand, constitutions have
sometimes been framed by selfish and ignorant despots, inferior in
character and intelligence to the majority of the human beings to be
governed by the constitutions so devised. Under the former conditions
political realities fail to attain the high levels of the ideals; under
the latter conditions they rise above them. Finally, people outgrow
constitutions as they outgrow most other political devices and social
arrangements. In old civilizations it is common to find political life
upon a higher level than the formal constitutions, which, unrepealed
and unamended, have in fact become obsolete, ignored by the people of a
wiser and more generous age.

The writer of these pages fully believes that the political reality
in Russia is already better than the ignoble ideal set by the
Bolshevist constitution. The fundamental virtues of the Russian
people, their innate tolerance, their democracy, and their shrewd
sense have mitigated, and tend to increasingly mitigate, the rigors
of the new autocracy. Once more it is demonstrated that “man is more
than constitutions”; that adequate resources of human character
can make a tolerable degree of comfort possible under any sort of
constitution, just as lack of those resources can make life intolerable
under the best constitution ever devised. Men have attained a high
degree of civilization and comfort in spite of despotically conceived
constitutions, and, on the other hand, the evils of Tammany Hall under
a Tweed developed in spite of a constitution conceived in a spirit more
generous than any modern nation had hitherto known. Great spiritual and
moral forces, whose roots are deeply embedded in the soil of historical
development, are shaping Russia’s life. Already there is discernible
much that is better than anything in the constitution imposed upon her.

A more or less vague perception of this fact has led to much muddled
thinking; because the character of the Russian people and the political
and economic conditions prevailing have led to a general disregard of
much of Bolshevist theory, because men and women in Russia are finding
it possible to set aside certain elements of Bolshevism, and thereby
attain increasingly tolerable conditions of life, we are asked to
believe that Bolshevism is less evil than we feared it to be. To call
this “muddled thinking” is to put a strain upon charity of judgment.
The facts are not capable of such interpretation by minds disciplined
by the processes of straight and clear thinking. What they prove is
that, fortunately for mankind, the wholesomeness of the thought and
character of the average Russian has proved too strong to be overcome
by the false ideas and ideals of the Bolsheviki and their contrivances.
The Russian people live, not because they have found good in
Bolshevism, but because they have found means to circumvent Bolshevism
and set it aside. What progress is being made in Russia to-day is
not the result of Bolshevism, but of the growing power of those very
qualities of mind and heart which Bolshevism sought to destroy.

Bolshevism is autocratic and despotic in its essence. Whoever
believes--as the present writer does--that the only rational and
coherent hope for the progress of civilization lies in the growth of
democracy must reject Bolshevism and all its works and ways. It is well
to remember that whatever there is of freedom and good will in Russia,
of democratic growth, exists in fundamental defiance and antagonism to
Bolshevism and would be crushed if the triumph of the latter became
complete. It is still necessary, therefore, to judge Bolshevism by its
ideal and the logical implications of its ideal; not by what results
where it is made powerless by moral or economic forces which it cannot
overcome, but by what it aims at doing and will do if possible. It is
for this reason that we must subject the constitution of Bolshevist
Russia to careful analysis and scrutiny. In this document the
intellectual leaders of Bolshevism have set forth in the precise terms
of organic law the manner in which they would reconstruct the state.

In considering the political constitution of any nation the believer in
democratic government seeks first of all to know the extent and nature
of the franchise of its citizens, how it is obtained, what power it
has, and how it is exercised. The almost uniform experience of those
nations which have developed free and responsible self-government has
led to the conclusion that the ultimate sovereignty of the citizens
must be absolute; that suffrage must be equal, universal, direct, and
free; that it must be exercised under conditions which do not permit
intimidation, coercion, or fraud, and that, finally, the mandate of
the citizens so expressed must be imperative. The validity of these
conclusions may not be absolute; it is at least conceivable that
they may be revised. For that matter, a reversion to aristocracy is
conceivable, highly improbable though it may be. With these uniform
results of the experience of many nations as our criteria, let us
examine the fundamental suffrage provisions of the Constitution of the
Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic and the provisions relating
to elections. These are all set forth in Article IV, Chapters XIII to
XV, inclusive:

ARTICLE IV

Chapter XIII

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

64. The right to vote and to be elected to the Soviets is
enjoyed by the following citizens of both sexes, irrespective
of religion, nationality, domicile, etc., of the Russian
Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, who shall have completed
their eighteenth year by the day of election:

(_a_) All who have acquired the means of livelihood through
labor that is productive and useful to society, and also
persons engaged in housekeeping which enables the former to do
productive work, _i.e._, laborers and employees of all classes
who are employed in industry, trade, agriculture, etc., and
peasants and Cossack agricultural laborers who employ no help
for the purpose of making profits.

(_b_) Soldiers of the army and navy of the Soviets.

(_c_) Citizens of the two preceding categories who have in any
degree lost their capacity to work.

_Note 1_: Local Soviets may, upon approval of the central
power, lower the age standard mentioned herein.

_Note 2_: Non-citizens mentioned in Section 20 (Article II.
Chapter V) have the right to vote.

65. The following persons enjoy neither the right to vote nor
the right to be voted for, even though they belong to one of
the categories enumerated above, namely:

(_a_) Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it
an increase in profits.

(_b_) Persons who have an income without doing any work, such
as interest from capital, receipts from property, etc.

(_c_) Private merchants, trade and commercial brokers.

(_d_) Monks and clergy of all denominations.

(_e_) Employees and agents of the former police, the gendarme
corps, and the _Okhrana_ (Czar’s secret service), also members
of the former reigning dynasty.

(_f_) Persons who have in legal form been declared demented or
mentally deficient, and also persons under guardianship.

(_g_) Persons who have been deprived by a Soviet of their
rights of citizenship because of selfish or dishonorable
offenses, for the period fixed by the sentence.

Chapter XIV

ELECTIONS

66. Elections are conducted according to custom on days fixed
by the local Soviets.

67. Election takes place in the presence of an election
committee and the representative of the local Soviet.

68. In case the representative of the Soviet cannot for valid
causes be present, the chairman of the election meeting
replaces him.

69. Minutes of the proceedings and results of elections are to
be compiled and signed by the members of the election committee
and the representative of the Soviet.

70. Detailed instructions regarding the election proceedings
and the participation in them of professional and other
workers’ organizations are to be issued by the local Soviets,
according to the instructions of the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee.

Chapter XV

THE CHECKING AND CANCELLATION OF ELECTIONS AND RECALL OF THE DEPUTIES

71. The respective Soviets receive all the records of the
proceedings of the election.

72. The Soviet appoints a commission to verify the election.

73. This commission reports the results to the Soviet.

74. The Soviet decides the question when there is doubt as to
which candidate is elected.

75. The Soviet announces a new election if the election of one
candidate or another cannot be determined.

76. If an election was irregularly carried on in its entirety,
it may be declared void by a higher Soviet authority.

77. The highest authority in relation to questions of elections
is the All-Russian Central Executive Committee.

78. Voters who have sent a deputy to the Soviet have the right
to recall him, and to have a new election, according to general
provisions.

It is quite clear that the suffrage here provided for is not universal;
that certain classes of people commonly found in modern civilized
nations in considerable numbers are not entitled to vote. There may
be some doubt as to the precise meaning of some of the paragraphs in
Chapter XIII, but it is certain that, if the language used is to be
subject to no esoteric interpretation, the following social groups
are excluded from the right to vote: (_a_) all persons who employ
hired labor for profit, including farmers with a single hired helper;
(_b_) all persons who draw incomes from interest, rent, or profit;
(_c_) all persons engaged in private trade, even to the smallest
shopkeeper; (_d_) all ministers of religion of every kind; (_e_) all
persons engaged in work which is not defined by the proper authorities
as “productive and useful to society”; (_f_) members of the old royal
family and those formerly employed in the old police service.

It is obvious that a very large part of the present voting population
of this country would be disfranchised if we should adopt these
restrictions or anything like them. It may be fairly argued in reply,
however, that the disfranchisement would be--and now is, in Russia--a
temporary condition only; that the object of the discriminations, and
of other political and economic arrangements complementary to them,
is to force people out of such categories as are banned and penalized
with disfranchisement--and that this is being done in Russia. In other
words, people are to be forced to cease hiring labor for profit,
engaging in private trade, being ministers of religion, living on
incomes derived from interest, rent, or profits. They are to be forced
into service that is “productive and useful to society,” and when that
is accomplished they will become qualified to vote. Thus practically
universal suffrage is possible, in theory at any rate.

So much may be argued with fair show of reason. We may dispute the
assumption that there is anything to be gained by disfranchising
a man because he engages in trade, and thereby possibly confers a
benefit upon those whom he serves. We may doubt or deny that there is
likely to accrue any advantage to society from the disfranchisement
of all ministers of religion. We may believe that to suppress some of
the categories which are discriminated against would be a disaster,
subversive of the life of society even. When all this has been admitted
it remains the fact that it is possible to conceive of a society
in which there are no employers, traders, recipients of capitalist
incomes, or ministers of religion; it is possible to conceive of such
a society in which, even under this constitution, only a very small
fraction of the adult population would be disfranchised. Of course,
it is so highly improbable that it borders on the fantastic; but it
is, nevertheless, within the bounds of conceivability that practically
universal suffrage might be realized within the limits of this
instrument.

Let us examine, briefly, the conditions under which the franchise is
to be exercised: we do not find any provision for that secrecy of
the ballot which experience and ordinary good sense indicate as the
only practicable method of eliminating coercion, intimidation, and
vote-trafficking. Nor do we find anything like a uniform method of
voting. The holding of elections “conducted according to custom on
days fixed by the local Soviets”--themselves elective bodies--makes
possible an amount of political manipulation and intrigue which almost
staggers the imagination. Not until human beings attain a far greater
degree of perfection than has ever yet been attained, so far as there
is any record, will it be safe or prudent to endow any set of men with
so much arbitrary power over the manner in which their fellows may
exercise the electoral franchise.

There is one paragraph in the above-quoted portions of the Constitution
of Soviet Russia which alone opens the way to a despotism which is
practically unlimited. Paragraph 70 of Chapter XIV provides that:
“Detailed instructions regarding the election proceedings _and the
participation in them of professional and other workers’ organizations_
are to be issued by the local Soviets, _according to the instructions
of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee_.” Within the scope of
this general statement every essential principle of representative
government can be lawfully abrogated. Elsewhere it has been shown
that trades-unions have been denied the right to nominate or vote for
candidates unless “their declared relations to the Soviet Government
are approved by the Soviet authorities”; that parties are permitted to
nominate only such candidates as are acceptable to, and approved by,
the central authority; that specific orders to elect certain favored
candidates have actually been issued by responsible officials. Within
the scope of Paragraph 70 of Chapter XIV, all these things are clearly
permissible. No limit to the “instructions” which may be given by the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee is provided by the Constitution
itself. It cannot be argued that the danger of evil practices occurring
is an imaginary one merely; the concrete examples cited in the previous
chapter show that the danger is a very real one.

In this connection it is important to note Paragraph 23 of Chapter V,
Article VI, which reads as follows:

Being guided by the interests of the working-class as a whole,
the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic deprives all
individuals and groups of rights which could be utilized by
them to the detriment of the Socialist Revolution.

This means, apparently, that the Council of People’s Commissars can at
any time disfranchise any individual or group or party which aims to
overthrow their rule. This power has been used with tremendous effect
on many occasions.

Was it this power which caused the Bolsheviki to withhold the
electoral franchise from all members of the teaching profession in
Petrograd, we wonder? According to Section 64 of Chapter XIII of
the Soviet Constitution, the “right to vote and to be elected to
the Soviets” belongs, first, to “all who have acquired the means of
livelihood through labor that is productive and useful to society.”
Teachers employed in the public schools and other educational
institutions--especially those controlled by the state--would naturally
be included in this category, without any question, one would suppose,
especially in view of the manner in which the Bolsheviki have paraded
their great passion for education and culture. Nevertheless, it seems
to be a fact that, up to July, 1919, the teaching profession of
Petrograd was excluded from representation in the Soviet. The following
paragraph from the _Izvestia_ of the Petrograd Soviet, dated July 3,
1919, can hardly be otherwise interpreted:

Teachers and other cultural-educational workers this year
_for the first time_ will be able, in an organized manner
through their union, to take an active part in the work of
the Petrograd Soviet of Deputies. _This is the first and most
difficult examination for the working intelligentsia of the
above-named categories._ Comrades and citizens, scholars,
teachers, and other cultural workers, stand this test in a
worthy manner!

Let us now turn our attention to those provisions of the Constitution
of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic which concern the
general political organization of the Soviet state. These are contained
in Article III, Chapters VI to XII, inclusive, and are as follows:

ARTICLE III

CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOVIET POWER

A. ORGANIZATION OF THE CENTRAL POWER

Chapter VI

THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS OF SOVIETS OF WORKERS’, PEASANTS’, COSSACKS’,
AND RED ARMY DEPUTIES

24. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is the supreme power of
the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic.

25. The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is composed of
representatives of urban Soviets (one delegate for 25,000
voters), and of representatives of the provincial (_Gubernia_)
congresses of Soviets (one delegate for 125,000 inhabitants).

_Note 1_: In case the Provincial Congress is not called before
the All-Russian Congress is convoked, delegates for the latter
are sent directly from the County (_Oyezd_) Congress.

_Note 2_: In case the Regional (_Oblast_) Congress is convoked
indirectly, previous to the convocation of the All-Russian
Congress, delegates for the latter may be sent by the Regional
Congress.

26. The All-Russian Congress is convoked by the All-Russian
Central Executive Committee at least twice a year.

27. A special All-Russian Congress is convoked by the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee upon its own
initiative, or upon the request of local Soviets having not
less than one-third of the entire population of the Republic.

28. The All-Russian Congress elects an All-Russian Central
Executive Committee of not more than 200 members.

29. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee is entirely
responsible to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

30. In the periods between the convocation of the Congresses,
the All-Russian Central Executive Committee is the supreme
power of the Republic.

Chapter VII

THE ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

31. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee is the supreme
legislative, executive, and controlling organ of the Russian
Socialist Federal Soviet Republic.

32. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee directs in
a general way the activity of the Workers’ and Peasants’
Government and of all organs of the Soviet authority in the
country, and it co-ordinates and regulates the operation of the
Soviet Constitution and of the resolutions of the All-Russian
Congresses and of the central organs of the Soviet power.

33. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee considers and
enacts all measures and proposals introduced by the Soviet of
People’s Commissars or by the various departments, and it also
issues its own decrees and regulations.

34. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee convokes the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, at which time the Executive
Committee reports on its activity and on general questions.

35. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee forms a Council
of People’s Commissars for the purpose of general management of
the affairs of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic,
and it also forms departments (People’s Commissariats) for the
purpose of conducting the various branches.

36. The members of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee
work in the various departments (People’s Commissariats) or
execute special orders of the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee.

Chapter VIII

THE COUNCIL OF PEOPLE’S COMMISSARS

37. The Council of People’s Commissars is intrusted with the
general management of the affairs of the Russian Socialist
Federal Soviet Republic.

38. For the accomplishment of this task the Council of People’s
Commissars issues decrees, resolutions, orders, and, in
general, takes all steps necessary for the proper and rapid
conduct of government affairs.

39. The Council of People’s Commissars notifies immediately the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee of all its orders and
resolutions.

40. The All-Russian Central Executive Committee has the right
to revoke or suspend all orders and resolutions of the Council
of People’s Commissars.

41. All orders and resolutions of the Council of People’s
Commissars of great political significance are referred for
consideration and final approval to the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee.

_Note_: Measures requiring immediate execution may be enacted
directly by the Council of People’s Commissars.

42. The members of the Council of People’s Commissars stand at
the head of the various People’s Commissariats.

43. There are seventeen People’s Commissars: (_a_) Foreign
Affairs, (_b_) Army, (_c_) Navy, (_d_) Interior, (_e_) Justice,
(_f_) Labor, (_g_) Social Welfare, (_h_) Education, (_i_) Post
and Telegraph, (_j_) National Affairs, (_k_) Finances, (_l_)
Ways of Communication, (_m_) Agriculture, (_n_) Commerce and
Industry, (_o_) National Supplies, (_p_) State Control, (_q_)
Supreme Soviet of National Economy, (_r_) Public Health.

44. Every Commissar has a Collegium (Committee) of which he is
the President, and the members of which are appointed by the
Council of People’s Commissars.

45. A People’s Commissar has the individual right to decide
on all questions under the jurisdiction of his Commissariat,
and he is to report on his decision to the Collegium. If
the Collegium does not agree with the Commissar on some
decisions, the former may, without stopping the execution of
the decision, complain of it to the executive members of the
Council of People’s Commissars or to the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee.

Individual members of the Collegium have this right also.

46. The Council of People’s Commissars is entirely responsible
to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets and the All-Russian
Central Executive Committee.

47. The People’s Commissars and the Collegia of the People’s
Commissariats are entirely responsible to the Council of
People’s Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee.

48. The title of People’s Commissar belongs only to the members
of the Council of People’s Commissars, which is in charge
of general affairs of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet
Republic, and it cannot be used by any other representative of
the Soviet power, either central or local.

Chapter IX

AFFAIRS IN THE JURISDICTION OF THE ALL-RUSSIAN CONGRESS AND THE
ALL-RUSSIAN CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

49. The All-Russian Congress and the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee deal with questions of state, such as:

(_a_) Ratification and amendment of the Constitution of the
Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic.

(_b_) General direction of the entire interior and foreign
policy of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic.

(_c_) Establishing and changing boundaries, also ceding
territory belonging to the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet
Republic.

(_d_) Establishing boundaries for regional Soviet unions
belonging to the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic,
also settling disputes among them.

(_e_) Admission of new members to the Russian Socialist Federal
Soviet Republic, and recognition of the secession of any parts
of it.

(_f_) The general administrative division of the territory of
the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic and the approval
of regional unions.

(_g_) Establishing and changing weights, measures, and money
denominations in the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic.

(_h_) Foreign relations, declaration of war, and ratification
of peace treaties.

(_i_) Making loans, signing commercial treaties and financial
agreements.

(_j_) Working out a basis and a general plan for the national
economy and for its various branches in the Russian Socialist
Federal Soviet Republic.

(_k_) Approval of the budget of the Russian Socialist Federal
Soviet Republic.

(_l_) Levying taxes and establishing the duties of citizens to
the state.

(_m_) Establishing the bases for the organization of armed
forces.

(_n_) State legislation, judicial organization and procedure,
civil and criminal legislation, etc.

(_o_) Appointment and dismissal of the individual People’s
Commissars or the entire Council, also approval of the
President of the Council of People’s Commissars.

(_p_) Granting and canceling Russian citizenship and fixing
rights of foreigners.

(_q_) The right to declare individual and general amnesty.

50. Besides the above-mentioned questions, the All-Russian
Congress and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee have
charge of all other affairs which, according to their decision,
require their attention.

51. The following questions are solely under the jurisdiction
of the All-Russian Congress:

(_a_) Ratification and amendment of the fundamental principles
of the Soviet Constitution.

(_b_) Ratification of peace treaties.

52. The decision of questions indicated in Paragraphs (_c_)
and (_h_) of Section 49 may be made by the All-Russian Central
Executive Committee only in case it is impossible to convoke
the Congress.

B. ORGANIZATION OF LOCAL SOVIETS

Chapter X

THE CONGRESSES OF THE SOVIETS

53. Congresses of Soviets are composed as follows:

(_a_) Regional: of representatives of the urban and county
Soviets, one representative for 25,000 inhabitants of the
county, and one representative for 5,000 voters of the
cities--but not more than 500 representatives for the entire
region--or of representatives of the provincial Congresses,
chosen on the same basis, if such a Congress meets before the
regional Congress.

(_b_) Provincial (_Gubernia_): of representatives of urban
and rural (_Volost_) Soviets, one representative for 10,000
inhabitants from the rural districts, and one representative
for 2,000 voters in the city; altogether not more than 300
representatives for the entire province. In case the county
Congress meets before the provincial, election takes place on
the same basis, but by the county Congress instead of the rural.

(_c_) County: of representatives of rural Soviets, one
delegate for each 1,000 inhabitants, but not more than 300
delegates for the entire county.

(_d_) Rural (_Volost_): of representatives of all village
Soviets in the _Volost_, one delegate for ten members of the
Soviet.

_Note 1_: Representatives of urban Soviets which have a
population of not more than 10,000 persons participate in the
county Congress; village Soviets of districts less than 1,000
inhabitants unite for the purpose of electing delegates to the
county Congress.

_Note 2_: Rural Soviets of less than ten members send one
delegate to the rural (_Volost_) Congress.

54. Congresses of the Soviets are convoked by the respective
Executive Committees upon their own initiative, or upon request
of local Soviets comprising not less than one-third of the
entire population of the given district. In any case they
are convoked at least twice a year for regions, every three
months for provinces and counties, and once a month for rural
districts.

55. Every Congress of Soviets (regional, provincial, county,
or rural) elects its Executive organ--an Executive Committee
the membership of which shall not exceed: (_a_) for regions and
provinces, twenty-five; (_b_) for a county, twenty; (_c_) for a
rural district, ten. The Executive Committee is responsible to
the Congress which elected it.

56. In the boundaries of the respective territories the
Congress is the supreme power; during intervals between the
convocations of the Congress, the Executive Committee is the
supreme power.

Chapter XI

THE SOVIET OF DEPUTIES

57. Soviets of Deputies are formed:

(_a_) In cities, one deputy for each 1,000 inhabitants; the
total to be not less than fifty and not more than 1,000 members.

(_b_) All other settlements (towns, villages, hamlets, etc.)
of less than 10,000 inhabitants, one deputy for each 100
inhabitants; the total to be not less than three and not more
than fifty deputies for each settlement.

Term of the deputy, three months.

_Note_: In small rural sections, whenever possible, all
questions shall be decided at general meetings of voters.

58. The Soviet of Deputies elects an Executive Committee to
deal with current affairs; not more than five members for
rural districts, one for every fifty members of the Soviets of
cities, but not more than fifteen and not less than three in
the aggregate (Petrograd and Moscow not more than forty). The
Executive Committee is entirely responsible to the Soviet which
elected it.

59. The Soviet of Deputies is convoked by the Executive
Committee upon its own initiative, or upon the request of not
less than one-half of the membership of the Soviet; in any
case at least once a week in cities, and twice a week in rural
sections.

60. Within its jurisdiction the Soviet, and in cases mentioned
in Section 57, Note, the meeting of the voters is the supreme
power in the given district.

Chapter XII

JURISDICTION OF THE LOCAL ORGANS OF THE SOVIETS

61. Regional, provincial, county, and rural organs of the
Soviet power and also the Soviets of Deputies have to perform
the following duties:

(_a_) Carry out all orders of the respective higher organs of
the Soviet power.

(_b_) Take all steps for raising the cultural and economic
standard of the given territory.

(_c_) Decide all questions of local importance within their
respective territories.

(_d_) Co-ordinate all Soviet activity in their respective
territories.

62. The Congresses of Soviets and their Executive Committees
have the right to control the activity of the local Soviets
(_i.e._, the regional Congress controls all Soviets of
the respective region; the provincial, of the respective
province, with the exception of the urban Soviets, etc.); and
the regional and provincial Congresses and their Executive
Committees have in addition the right to overrule the decisions
of the Soviets of their districts, giving notice in important
cases to the central Soviet authority.

63. For the purpose of performing their duties, the local
Soviets, rural and urban, and the Executive Committees form
sections respectively.

_It is a significant and notable fact that nowhere in the whole of
this remarkable document is there any provision which assures to the
individual voter, or to any group, party, or other organization of
voters, assurance of the right to make nominations for any office
in the whole system of government._ Incredible as it may seem, this
is literally and exactly true. The urban Soviet consists of “one
deputy for each 1,000 inhabitants,” but there is nowhere a sentence
prescribing how these deputies are to be nominated or by whom. The
village Soviet consists of “one deputy for each 100 inhabitants,”
but there is nowhere a sentence to show how these deputies are to
be nominated, or wherein the right to make nominations is vested.
The _Volost_ Congress is composed of “representatives of all village
Soviets” and the County Congress (_Oyezd_) of “representatives of
rural Soviets.” In both these cases the representatives are termed
“delegates,” but there is no intimation of how they are nominated, or
what their qualifications are. The Provincial Congress (_Gubernia_) is
composed of “representatives of urban and rural (_Volost_) Soviets.” In
this case the word “representatives” is maintained throughout; the word
“delegates” does not appear. In this provision, as in the others, there
is no intimation of how they are nominated, or whether they are elected
or designated.

It can hardly be gainsaid that the Constitution of the Russian
Socialist Federal Soviet Republic is characterized by loose
construction, vagueness where definiteness is essential, and a
marked deficiency of those safeguards and guaranties which ought to
be incorporated into a written constitution. There is, for example,
no provision for that immunity of parliamentary representatives
from arrest for libel, sedition, and the like, which is enjoyed in
practically all other countries. Even under Czar Nicholas II this
principle of parliamentary immunity was always observed until November,
1916, when the ferment of revolution was already manifesting itself.
It requires no expert legal knowledge or training to perceive that
the fundamental instrument of the political and legal system of
Soviet Russia fails to provide adequate protection for the rights and
liberties of its citizens.

Let us consider now another matter of cardinal importance, the complex
and tedious processes which intervene between the citizen-voter and the
“Council of People’s Commissars.”

(1) The electorate is divided into two groups or divisions, the
urban and the rural. Those entitled to vote in the city form, in the
first instance, the Soviet of the shop, factory, trades-union, or
professional association, as the case may be. Those entitled to vote in
the rural village form, in the first instance, the village Soviet.

(2) The Soviets of the shops, factories, trades-unions, and
professional associations choose, in such manner as they will,
representatives to the urban Soviet. The urban Soviets are not all
based on equal representation, however. According to announcements
in the official Bolshevist press, factory workers in Petrograd are
entitled to one representative in the Petrograd Soviet for every
500 electors, while the soldiers and sailors are entitled to one
representative for every 200 members. Thus two soldiers’ votes
count for exactly as much as five workmen’s votes. Those entitled
to vote in the village Soviets choose representatives to a rural
Soviet (_Volost_), and this body, in turn, chooses representatives
to the county Soviet (_Oyezd_). This latter body is equal in power
to the urban Soviet; both are represented in the Provincial Soviet
(_Gubernia_). The village peasant is one step farther removed from the
Provincial Soviet than is the city worker.

(3) Both the urban Soviets of the city workers’ representatives and the
county Soviets of the peasants’ representatives are represented in the
Provincial Soviet. There appears at this point another great inequality
in voting power. The basis of representation is one member for 2,000
city _voters_ and one for 10,000 _inhabitants_ of rural villages.
At first this seems to mean--and has been generally understood to
mean--that each city worker’s vote is equal to the votes of _five_
peasants. Apparently this is an error. The difference is more nearly
three to one than five to one. Representation is based on the number of
_city voters_ and the number of _village inhabitants_.

(4) The Provincial Congress (_Gubernia_) sends representatives to the
Regional Congress. Here again the voting power is unequal: the basis
of representation is one representative for 5,000 _city voters_ and
one for “25,000 inhabitants of the county.” The discrimination here is
markedly greater than in the case of the Provincial Congresses for the
following reason: The members of these Regional Congresses are chosen
by the _Gubernias_, which include representatives of city workers as
well as representatives of peasants, the former being given three times
proportionate representation of the latter. Obviously, to again apply
the same principle and choose representatives of the _Gubernias_ to the
Regional Congresses on the same basis of three to one has a cumulative
disadvantage to the peasant.

(5) The All-Russian Congress of Soviets is composed of delegates
chosen by the Provincial Congresses, which represent city workers and
peasants, as already shown, _and of representatives sent direct from
the urban Soviets_.

[Illustration: From Voter to National Government--Russia and U. S.
A.[6]]

[6] In all the Soviets, from County Soviets onward, city voters have a
larger vote in proportion to numbers than rural voters. (See text.)

It will be seen that at every step, from the county Soviet to the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, elaborate care has been taken to
make certain that the representatives of the city workers are not
outnumbered by peasants’ representatives. The peasants, who make up 85
per cent. of the population, are systematically discriminated against.

(6) We are not yet at the end of the intricate Soviet system of
government. While the All-Russian Congress of Soviets is nominally the
supreme power in the state, it is too unwieldy a body to do more than
discuss general policies. It meets twice a year for this purpose. From
its membership of 1,500 is chosen the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee of “not more than 200 members.” This likewise is too unwieldy
a body to function either quickly or well.

(7) The All-Russian Central Executive Committee selects the Council of
People’s Commissars of seventeen members, each Commissar being at the
head of a department of the government.

A brief study of the diagram on the preceding page will show how much
less directly responsive to the electorate than our own United States
Government is this complicated, bureaucratic government of Soviet
Russia.

THE PEASANTS AND THE LAND

At the time of the Revolution the peasantry comprised 85 per
cent. of the population. The industrial wage-earning class--the
proletariat--comprised, according to the most generous estimate, not
more than 3 to 4 per cent. That part of the proletariat which was
actively interested in the revolutionary social change was represented
by the Social Democratic Party, which was split into factions as
follows: on the right the moderate “defensist” Mensheviki; on the left
the radical “defeatist” Bolsheviki; with a large center faction which
held a middle course, sometimes giving its support to the right wing
and sometimes to the left. Each of these factions contained in it men
and women of varying shades of opinion and diverse temperaments. Thus
among the Mensheviki were some who were so radical that they were very
close to the Bolsheviki, while among the latter were some individuals
who were so moderate that they were very close to the Mensheviki.

That part of the peasantry which was actively interested in
revolutionary social change was represented by the peasant Socialist
parties, the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists, and the Populists,
or People’s Socialists. The former alone possessed any great numerical
strength or political significance. In this party, as in the Social
Democratic Party, there was a moderate right wing and a radical
left wing with a strong centrist element. In this party also were
found in each of the wings men and women whose views seemed barely
distinguishable from those generally characteristic of the other. In
a general way, the relations of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the
Social Democrats were characterized by a tendency on the part of the
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right to make common cause with the
Menshevist Social Democrats and a like tendency on the part of the
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left to make common cause with the
Bolshevist Social Democrats.

This merging of the two parties applied only to the general program
of revolutionary action; in particular to the struggle to overthrow
czarism. Upon the supreme basic economic issue confronting Russia they
were separated by a deep and wide gulf. The psychology of the peasants
was utterly unlike that of the urban proletariat. The latter were
concerned with the organization of the state, with factory legislation,
with those issues which are universally raised in the conflict
of capitalists and wage-earners. The consciousness of the Social
Democratic Party was proletarian. On the other hand, the peasants cared
very little about the organization of the state or any of the matters
which the city workers regarded as being of cardinal importance. They
were “land hungry”; they wanted a distribution of the land which would
increase their individual holdings. The passion for private possession
of land is strong in the peasant of every land, the Russian peasant
being no exception to the rule. Yet there is perhaps one respect in
which the psychology of the Russian peasant differs from that of the
French peasant, for example. The Russian peasant is quite as deeply
interested in becoming an individual landholder; he is much less
interested in the idea of absolute ownership. Undisturbed possession of
an adequate acreage, even though unaccompanied by the title of absolute
ownership, satisfies the Russian.

The moderate Social Democrats, the Mensheviki, and the
Socialists-Revolutionists stood for substantially the same solution of
the land problem prior to the Revolution. They wanted to confiscate the
lands of great estates, the Church and the Crown, and to turn them over
to democratically elected and governed local bodies. The Bolsheviki,
on the other hand, wanted all land to be nationalized and in place of
millions of small owners they wanted state ownership and control. Large
scale agriculture on government-owned lands by government employees
and more or less rapid extinction of private ownership and operation
was their ideal. The Socialists-Revolutionists denounced this program
of nationalization, saying that it would make the peasants “mere
wage-slaves of the state.” They wanted “socialization” of all land,
including that of the small peasant owners. By socialization they meant
taking all lands “out of private ownership of persons into the public
ownership, _and their management by democratically organized leagues of
communities with the purpose of an equitable utilization_.”

The Russian peasant looked upon the Revolution as, above everything
else, the certain fulfilment of his desire for redistribution of
the land. There were, in fact, two issues which far outweighed all
others--the land problem and peace. All classes in Russia, even
a majority of the great landowners themselves, realized that the
distribution of land among the peasants was now inevitable. Thus,
interrogated by peasants, Rodzianko, President of the Fourth Duma, a
large landowner, said:

“Yes, we admit that the fundamental problem of the Constituent Assembly
is not merely to construct a political system for Russia, but likewise
_to give back to the peasantry the land which is at present in our
hands_.”

The Provisional Government, under Lvov, dominated as it then was
by landowners and bourgeoisie, never for a moment sought to evade
this question. On March 15, 1917, the very day of its formation,
the Provisional Government by a decree transferred all the Crown
lands--approximately 12,000,000 acres--to the Ministry of Agriculture
as state property. Two weeks later the Provisional Government conferred
upon the newly created Food Commissions the right to take possession
of all vacant and uncultivated land, to cultivate it or to rent it
to peasants who were ready to undertake the cultivation. This order
compelled many landowners to turn their idle lands over to peasants
who were willing and ready to proceed with cultivation. On April 21,
1917, the Provisional Government by a decree created Land Commissions
throughout the whole of Russia. These Land Commissions were created in
every township (_Volost_), county (_Oyezd_), and province (_Gubernia_).
They were to collect all information concerning landownership and local
administrative agencies and make their reports to a superior national
body, the All-Russian Land Commission, which, in turn, would prepare
a comprehensive scheme for submission to the Constituent Assembly. On
May 18, 1917, the Provisional Government announced that the question of
the transfer of the land to the peasants was to be left wholly to the
Constituent Assembly.

These local Land Commissions, as well as the superior national
commission, were democratically chosen bodies, thoroughly
representative of the peasantry. As might be expected, they were to
a very large extent guided by the representatives of the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionists. There was never any doubt concerning their
attitude toward the peasants’ demand for distribution of the land. On
the All-Russian Land Commission were the best-known Russian authorities
on the land question and the agrarian problem. Professor Posnikov, the
chairman; Victor Chernov, leader of the Socialists-Revolutionists;
Pieshekhonov; Rakitnikov; the two Moslovs; Oganovsky; Vikhliaev;
Cherenekov; Veselovsky, and many other eminent authorities were on
this important body. To the ordinary non-Russian these names will
mean little, perhaps, but to all who are familiar with modern Russia
this brief list will be a sufficient assurance that the commission
was governed by liberal idealism united to scientific knowledge and
practical experience.

The Land Commissions were not created merely for the purpose of
collating data upon the subject of landownership and cultivation. That
was, indeed, their avowed and ostensible object; but behind that there
was another and much more urgent purpose. In the first place, as soon
as the revolutionary disturbances began, peasants in many villages
took matters into their own hands and appropriated whatever lands they
could seize. Agitators had gone among the peasantry--agitators of the
Party of Socialists-Revolutionists not less than of the Bolsheviki--and
preached the doctrine of “the expropriation of the expropriators.” They
told the peasants to seize the land and so execute the will of the
people. So long as czarism remained the peasants held back; once it was
destroyed, they threw off their restraint and began to seize the land
for themselves. The Revolution was here. Was it not always understood
that when the Revolution came they were to take the land?

Numerous estates were seized and in some cases the landowners were
brutally murdered by the frenzied peasants. On some of the large
estates the mansions of the owners, the laborers’ cottages, stables,
cattle-sheds, and corn-stacks were burned and the valuable agricultural
machinery destroyed. Whenever this happened it was a great calamity,
for on the large estates were the model farms, the agricultural
experiment stations of Russia. And while this wanton and foolish
destruction was going on there was a great dearth of food for the
army at the front. Millions of men had to be fed and it was necessary
to make proper provision for the conservation of existing food crops
and for increased production. Nor was it only the big estates which
were thus attacked and despoiled; in numerous instances the farms of
the “middle peasants”--corresponding to our moderately well-to-do
farmers--were seized and their rightful owners driven away. In some
cases very small farms were likewise seized. Something had to be done
to save Russia from this anarchy, which threatened the very life of the
nation. The Land Commissions were made administrative organs to deal
with the land problems as they arose, to act until the new Zemstvos
could be elected and begin to function, when the administrative work of
the commissions would be assumed by the Land Offices of the Zemstvos.

There was another very serious matter which made it important to have
the Land Commissions function as administrative bodies. Numerous
landowners had begun to divide their estates, selling the land off in
parcels, thus introducing greater complexity into the problem, a more
numerous class of owners to be dealt with. In many cases, moreover, the
“sales” and “transfers” were fictitious and deceptive, the new “owners”
being mere dummies. In this manner the landowners sought to trick and
cheat the peasants. It was to meet this menace that the Provisional
Government, on July 12, 1917, by special decree put a stop to all land
speculation and forbade the transfer of title to any land, outside of
the cities, except by consent of the local Land Commission approved by
the Ministry of Agriculture.

Chernov, who under Kerensky became Minister of Agriculture, was the
creator of the Land Commissions and the principal author of the
agrarian program of the Provisional Government as this was developed
from March to October. How completely his policy was justified may
be judged from the fact that while most of the landlords fled to the
cities at the outbreak of the Revolution in March, fearing murderous
riotings such as took place in 1906, in June they had nearly all
returned to their estates. The Land Commissions had checked the
peasant uprisings; they had given the peasants something to do toward
a constructive solution, and had created in their minds confidence
that they were going to be honestly dealt with; that the land would
be distributed among them before long. In other words, the peasants
were patiently waiting for freedom and land to be assured by legal and
peaceful means.

Then the Bolsheviki began to rouse the peasants once more and to play
upon their suspicions and fears. Simultaneously their propagandists in
the cities and in the villages began their attacks upon the Provisional
Government. To the peasants they gave the same old advice: “Seize the
land for yourselves! Expropriate the landlords!” Once more the peasants
began to seize estates, to sack and burn manor houses, and even to
kill landowners. The middle of July saw the beginning of a revival
of the “Jacqueries,” and in a few weeks they had become alarmingly
common. The propagandists of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists
did their best to put an end to the outrages, but the peasants were
not so easily placated as they had been in March and April. Hope long
deferred had brought about a state of despair and desperation. The
poor, bewildered peasants could not understand why such a simple matter
as the distribution of the land--for so it seemed to them--should
require months of preparation. They were ready to believe the
Bolshevist propagandists who told them that the delay was intended
to enable the bourgeoisie to betray the toilers, and that if they
wanted the land they must take it for themselves. “You know how the
Socialists-Revolutionists always talked to you aforetime,” said these
skilful demagogues; “they told you then to seize the land, but now they
only tell you to wait, just as the landlords tell you. They have been
corrupted; they are no longer true representatives of your interest. We
tell you, what you have long known, that if you want the land you must
seize it for yourselves!”

Anarchy among the peasants grew apace. Some of the wisest of the
leaders of the Russian revolutionary movement urged the Provisional
Government to hurry, to revise its plan, and, instead of waiting for
the Constituent Assembly to act upon the land program, to put it into
effect at once. The All-Russian Land Commission hastened its work and
completed the formulation of a land program. The Provisional Government
stuck to its original declaration that the program must be considered
and approved or rejected by the Constituent Assembly. In October, at
the Democratic Conference in Petrograd, the so-called Pre-Parliament,
Prokopovich, the well-known Marxian economist, who had become Minister
of Commerce and Labor, uttered a solemn warning that “the disorderly
seizing of land was ruining agriculture and threatening the towns and
the northern provinces with famine.”

It is one of the numerous tragedies of the Russian Revolution that at
the very time this warning was issued Kerensky had in his possession
two plans, either of which might have averted the catastrophe that
followed. One of them was the completed program of the All-Russian Land
Commission, largely Chernov’s work. It had already been approved by
the Provisional Government. It was proposed that Kerensky should make
a fight to have the Cabinet proclaim this program to be law, without
waiting for the Constituent Assembly. The other plan was very simple
and crude. It was that all the large estates be seized at once, as a
measure of military necessity, and that in the distribution of the
land thus taken peasant soldiers with honorable discharges be given
preference. In either case, Kerensky would have split his Cabinet.

When we consider the conditions which prevailed at that time, the
extreme military and political weakness, and the vast stakes at
issue, it is easy to understand why Kerensky decided to wait for the
Constituent Assembly. It is easy enough to say now, after the event,
that Kerensky’s decision was wrong; that his only chance to hold the
confidence of the peasants was to do one of two things, declare
immediate peace or introduce sweeping land reforms. Certainly, that
seems fairly plain now. At that time, however, Kerensky faced the hard
fact that to do either of these things meant a serious break in the
Cabinet, another crisis, the outcome of which none could foretell.

Moreover, we must bear in mind that Kerensky himself and those with
whom he was working were inspired by a very genuine and sincere
passion for democracy. They believed in the Constituent Assembly.
They had idealized it. To them it was in the nature of a betrayal
of the Revolution that a matter of such fundamental importance
should be disposed of by a small handful of men, rather than by the
representatives of the people duly elected, upon a democratic basis,
for that purpose. The Provisional Government was pledged to leave
the Constituent Assembly free and untrammeled to deal with the land
problem: how could it violate its pledge and usurp the functions of
the Assembly? If Kerensky’s course was a mistaken one, it was so only
because conscientious loyalty to principle is not invariably expedient
in politics; because the guile and dishonesty of his opponents
triumphed over his simple honesty and truthfulness.

On October 20, 1917, the Provisional Government enacted a law which
marked a further step in the preparation of the way for the new system
of land tenure. The new law extended the control of the Land Offices
of the Zemstvos--where these existed, and of the Land Commissions,
where the Zemstvos with their Land Offices did not yet exist--over all
cultivated land. It was thus made possible for the provisions of a
comprehensive land law to be applied quickly, with a minimum amount of
either disturbance or delay.

From the foregoing it will be readily seen that the Bolshevist _coup
d’état_ interfered with the consummation of a most painstaking,
scientific effort to solve the greatest of all Russian problems. Their
apologists are fond of claiming that the Bolsheviki can at least be
credited with having solved the land problem by giving the land to
the peasants. The answer to that preposterous claim is contained in
the foregoing plain and unadorned chronological record, the accuracy
of which can easily be attested by any person having access to a
reasonably good library. In so far as the Bolsheviki put forward any
land program at all, they adopted, for reasons of political expediency,
the program which had been worked out by the Land Commissions under
the Provisional Government--the so-called Chernov program. With that
program they did nothing of any practical value, however. Where the
land was distributed under their régime it was done by the peasants
themselves. In many cases it was done in the primitive, violent,
destructive, and anarchical ways of the “Jacqueries” already described,
adding enormously to Russia’s suffering and well-nigh encompassing her
destruction. By nothing else is the malefic character and influence
of Bolshevism more clearly shown than by the state in which it placed
the land problem, just when it was about to be scientifically and
democratically solved.

When the Constituent Assembly met on January 5, 1918, the proposed land
law was at once taken up. The first ten paragraphs had been adopted
when the Assembly was dispersed by Trotsky’s Red Guards. The entire
bill was thus not acted upon. The ten paragraphs which were passed give
a very good idea of the general character and scope of the measure:

In the name of the peoples of the Russian State, composing the
All-Russian Constituent Assembly, be it ordained that:

1. Right of ownership to land within the limits of the Russian
Republic is henceforth and forever abolished.

2. All lands contained within the boundaries of the Russian
Republic with all their underground wealth, forests, and waters
become the property of the people.

3. The control of all lands, the surface and under the surface,
and all forests and waters belongs to the Republic, as
expressed in the forms of its central administrative organs and
organs of local self-government on the principles enacted by
this law.

4. Those territories of the Russian Republic which are
autonomous in a juridico-governmental conception, are to
realize their agrarian plans on the basis of this law and in
accord with the Federal Constitution.

5. The aims of the government forces and the organs of local
self-government in the sphere of the control of lands,
underground riches, forests, and waters constitute: (_a_)
The creation of conditions most favorable to the greater
exploitation of the natural wealth of the land and the
highest development of productive forces; (_b_) The equitable
distribution of all natural wealth among the population.

6. The right of any person or institution to land, underground
resources, forests, and waters is limited only to the
utilization thereof.

7. All citizens of the Russian Republic, and also unions of
such citizens and states and social institutions, may become
users of land, underground resources, forests, and waters,
without regard to nationality or religion.

8. The land rights of such users are to be obtained, become
effective, and cease under the terms laid down by this law.

9. Land rights belonging at present to private persons, groups,
and institutions, in so far as they conflict with this law, are
herewith abrogated.

10. The transformation of all lands, underground strata,
forests, and waters, belonging at present to private persons,
groups, or institutions, into popular property is to be made
without recompense to such owners.

After they had dispersed the Constituent Assembly the Bolsheviki
published their famous “Declaration of the Rights of the Laboring
and Exploited People,” containing their program for “socialization
of the land,” taken bodily from the Socialists-Revolutionists. This
declaration had been first presented to the Constituent Assembly when
the Bolsheviki demanded its adoption by that body. The paragraphs
relating to the socialization of the land read:

1. To effect the socialization of the land, private ownership
of land is abolished, and the whole land fund is declared
common national property and transferred to the laborers
without compensation, on the basis of equalized use of the soil.

All forests, minerals, and waters of state-wide importance, as
well as the whole inventory of animate and inanimate objects,
all estates and agricultural enterprises, are declared national
property.

This meant literally nothing from the standpoint of practical
politics. Its principal interest lies in the fact that it shows that
the Bolsheviki accepted in theory the essence of the land program
of the elements comprised in the Provisional Government and in the
Constituent Assembly, both of which they had overthrown. Practically
the declaration could have no effect upon the peasants. Millions of
them had been goaded by the Bolsheviki into resorting to anarchistic,
violent seizing of lands on the principle of “each for himself and
the devil take the hindmost.” These would now be ready to fight any
attempt made by the Soviet authorities to “socialize” the land they
held. Millions of other peasants were still under the direction of the
local Land Commissions, most of which continued to function, more or
less _sub rosa_, for some time. And even when and where the local Land
Commissions themselves did not exist, the plans they had prepared were,
in quite a large measure, put into practice when local land divisions
took place.

The Bolsheviki were powerless to make a single constructive
contribution to the solution of the basic economic problem of Russia.
Their “socialization decree” was a poor substitute for the program
whence it had been derived; they possessed no machinery and no moral
agencies to give it reality. It remained a pious wish, at best; perhaps
a far harsher description would be that much more nearly true. Later
on, when they went into the villages and sought to “socialize” them,
the Bolsheviki found that they had not solved the land problem, but
had made it worse than it had been before.

We have heard much concerning the nationalization of agriculture in
Soviet Russia, and of the marvelous success attending it. The facts,
as they are to be found in the official publications of the Soviet
Government and the Communist Party, do not sustain the roseate accounts
which have been published by our pro-Bolshevist friends. By July, 1918,
the month in which the previously decreed nationalization of industry
was enforced, some tentative steps toward the nationalization of
agriculture had already been taken. Maria Spiridonova, a leader of the
extreme left wing of the Socialists-Revolutionists, who had co-operated
with the Bolsheviki, bitterly assailed the Council of the People’s
Commissaries for having resorted to nationalization of the great
estates, especially in the western government. In a speech delivered in
Petrograd, on July 16th, Spiridonova charged that “the great estates
were being taken over by government departments and were being managed
by officials, on the ground that state control would yield better
results than communal ownership. Under this system the peasants were
being reduced to the state of slaves paid wages by the state. Yet the
law provided that these estates should be divided among the peasant
communes to be tilled by the peasants on a co-operative basis.” It
appears that this policy was adopted in a number of instances where
the hostility to the Bolsheviki manifested by the peasants made the
division of the land among them “undesirable.” Nationalization
upon any large scale was not resorted to until some months later.
Nationalization of the agriculture of the country as a whole has never
been attempted, of course. There could not be such a nationalization
of agriculture without first nationalizing the land, and that, popular
opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, has never been done in Russia
as yet. The _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 229) declared, in November,
1919, that “in spite of the fact that the decree announcing the
nationalization of the land is now two years old, _this nationalization
has not yet been carried out_.”

It was not until March, 1919, according to a report by N. Bogdanov
in _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, November 7, 1919, that nationalized
agriculture really began on a large scale. From this report we learn
something of the havoc which had been wrought upon the agricultural
industry of Russia from March, 1917 to 1919:

A considerable portion of the estates taken over by the
People’s Commissariat of Agriculture could not be utilized,
due to the lack of various accessories, such as harness,
horseshoes, rope, small instruments, etc.

The workers were very fluctuating, entirely unorganized,
politically inert--all this due to the shortage of provisions
and organization. The technical forces could not get used to
the village; besides, we did not have sufficient numbers of
agronomists (agricultural experts) familiar with the practical
organization of large estates. The regulations governing the
social management of land charged the representatives of the
industrial proletariat with a leading part in the work of
the Soviet estates. But, torn between meeting the various
requirements of the Republic, of prime importance, the
proletariat could not with sufficient speed furnish the number
of organizers necessary for agricultural management.

The idea of centralized management on the Soviet estates has
not been properly understood by the local authorities, and the
work of organization from the very beginning had to progress
amid bitter fighting between the provincial Soviet estates and
the provincial offices of the Department of Agriculture. This
struggle has not as yet ceased.

Thus, the work of nationalizing the country’s agriculture began
in the spring--_i.e._, a half-year later than it should have,
and without any definite territory (every inch of it had to
be taken after a long and strenuous siege on the part of the
surrounding population); with insufficient and semi-ruined
equipment; without provisions; without an apparatus for
organization and without the necessary experience for such
work; with the agricultural workers engaged in the Soviet
estates lacking any organization whatever.

Naturally, the results of this work are not impressive.

* * * * *

Within the limits of the Soviet estates the labor-union
of agricultural proletariat has developed into a large
organization.

In a number of provinces the leading part in the work of the
Soviet estates has been practically assumed by the industrial
proletariat, which has furnished a number of organizers, whose
reputation has been sufficiently established.

Estimating the results of the work accomplished, we must admit
that we have not yet any fully nationalized rural economy.
But during the eight months of work in this direction all the
elements for its organization have been accumulated.

* * * * *

A preliminary familiarity with individual estates and with
agricultural regions makes it possible to begin the preparation
of a national plan for production on the Soviet estates and for
a systematic attempt to meet the manifold demands made on the
nationalized estates by the agricultural industries: sugar,
distilling, chemical, etc., as well as by the country’s need
for stock-breeding, seeds, planting, and other raw materials.

The greatest difficulties arise in the creation of the
machinery of organization. The shortage of agricultural experts
is being replenished with great difficulty, for the position
of the technical personnel of the Soviet estates, due to
their weak political organization, is extremely unstable. The
mobilization of the proletarian forces for the work in the
Soviet estates gives us ground to believe that in this respect
the spring of 1920 will find us sufficiently prepared.

The ranks of proletarian workers in the Soviet estates are
drawing together. True, the level of their enlightenment is by
no means high, but “in union there is strength,” and this force
if properly utilized will rapidly yield positive results.

The sole purpose of these quotations is to show that at best the
“nationalization of agriculture” in Russia, concerning which we have
heard so much, is only an experiment that has just been begun; that
it bears no very important relation to the industry as a whole.
It would be just as true to say, on the basis of the agricultural
experiment stations of our national and state governments, that we
have “nationalized agriculture” as to make that claim for Russia. _The
records show that the “nationalized” farms did not produce enough food
to maintain the workers employed on them._

Apart from the nationalization of a number of large estates upon the
basis of wage labor under a centralized authority, the Committee for
the Communization of Agricultural Economy was formed for the purpose
of establishing agricultural communes. At the same time--February,
1919--the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets called on the
Provincial Soviets to take up this work of creating agricultural
communes. Millions of rubles were spent for this purpose, but the
results were very small. In March, 1919, _Pravda_ declared that “15,000
communes were registered, but we have no proofs as to their existence
anywhere except on paper.” The _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive
Committee, May, 1919, complained that “the number of newly organized
communes is growing smaller from month to month; the existing communes
are becoming disintegrated, twenty of them having been disbanded during
March.” City-bred workers found themselves helpless on the land and in
conflict with the peasants. On the other hand, the peasants would not
accept the communes, accompanied as these were with Soviet control. In
the same number of the _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee,
Nikolaiev, a well-known Bolshevik, declared:

The communes are absolutely contradictory to the mode of
living of our toiling peasant masses, as these communes demand
not only the abolition of property rights, to implements and
means of production, but the division of products according to
program.

At the Congress of Trades-unions, which met in Moscow in May, 1919,
the possibility of using the communes as means of relieving the
wide-spread unemployment and distress among the city workers was
discussed by Platonov, Rozanov, and other noted Bolsheviki. The
closing down of numerous factories and the resulting unemployment
of large masses of workmen had brought about an appalling amount of
hunger. It was proposed, therefore, that communes be formed in the
villages under the auspices of the trades-unions, and as branches of
the unions, parcels of land being given to the unions. In this way, it
was argued, employment would be found for the members of the unions
and the food-supply of the cities would be materially increased. While
approving the formation of communes, the Congress voted down the
proposal.

On June 8, 1919, there was established the Administration of Industrial
Allotments. The object of this new piece of bureaucratic machinery
was the increase of agricultural production through land allotments
attached to, or assigned to, industrial establishments, and their
cultivation by the workers. This scheme, which had been promulgated as
early as February, 1919, was a pathetic anticlimax to the ambitious
program with which the Bolshevist Utopia-builders set out. It was
neither more nor less than the “allotment gardens” scheme so long
familiar in British cities. Such allotment gardens were common enough
in the industrial centers of the United States during the war. As
an emergency measure for providing vegetables they were useful and
even admirable; as a contribution to the solution of the agricultural
problem in its largest sense their value was insignificant. Yet we
find the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, in November, 1919, indulging in the
old intoxicating visions of Utopia, and seeing in these allotments the
means whereby the cities could be relieved of their dependence upon the
rural villages for food:

Out of the hitherto frenzied rush of workmen into villages,
brought about by hunger, a healthy proletariat movement was
born, aiming at the creation of their own agriculture by
means of allotments attached to the works. This movement
resulted, on February 15, 1919, in a decree which granted to
factory and other proletariat groups the right to organize
their own rural economy.... The enthusiasm of the workmen
is impressive.... _The complete emancipation of the towns
from the villages in the matter of food-supply appears to be
quite within the realms of possibility in the near future,
without the unwieldy, expensive, and inefficient machinery of
the People’s Commissariat of Food Supply, and without undue
irritation of the villages._ This will, besides, relieve
enormously the strain on the crippled railways. And, what is
even more important, it points out a new and the only right way
to the nationalization of the land and to the socialization
of agriculture. And, indeed, in spite of the fact that the
decree announcing the nationalization of the land is now two
years old, _this nationalization has not yet been carried out_.
The attitude of the peasant to the land, psychologically as
well as economically, is still that of the small landowner.
He still considers the land his property, for, as before,
it is he, and not the state, that draws both the absolute
and the differential rent, and he is fighting for it, with
the food detachments, with all his power. If there is any
difference at all it is that the rent which formerly used to
find its way into the wide pockets of the landowners now
goes into the slender purse of the peasant. The difference,
however, in the size of the respective pockets is becoming
more and more insignificant.... In order to make the approach
to socialization of the land possible, it is necessary that
the Soviet authorities should, besides promulgating decrees,
actually take possession of the land, and the authorities can
only do this with the help of the industrial proletariat, whose
dictatorship it represents.

How extremely childish all this is! How little the knowledge of
the real problem it displays! If the official organ of the Supreme
Economic Council and the People’s Commissaries of Finance, Commerce
and Trade and Food knew no better than this after two such years as
Russia had passed through, how can there be any hope for Russia until
the reckless, ignorant, bungling experimenters are overthrown? Pills
of Podophyllum for earthquakes would be less grotesque than their
prescription for Russia’s ailment.

THE BOLSHEVIKI AND THE PEASANTS

In the fierce fratricidal conflict between the Bolsheviki and the
democratic anti-Bolshevist elements so much bitterness has been
engendered that anything approaching calm, dispassionate discussion
and judgment has been impossible for Russians, whether as residents
in Russia, engaged in the struggle, or as _émigrés_, impotent to do
more than indulge in the expression of their emotions, practically all
Russians everywhere have been--and still are--too intensely partizan to
be just or fair-minded. And non-Russians have been subject to the same
distorting passions, only to a lesser degree. Even here in the United
States, while an incredibly large part of the population has remained
utterly indifferent, wholly uninterested in the struggle or the
issues at stake, it has been practically impossible to find anywhere
intelligent interest dissociated from fierce partizanship.

The detachment and impartiality essential to the formation of sound and
unbiased judgment have been almost non-existent. The issues at stake
have been too vast and too fundamental, too vitally concerned with the
primal things of civilization, the sources of some of our profoundest
emotions, to permit cool deliberation. Moreover, little groups of men
and women with strident cries have hurled the challenge of Bolshevism
into the arena of our national life, and that at a time of abnormal
excitation, at the very moment when our lives were pulsing with a
fiercely emotional patriotism. As a result of these conditions there
has been little discriminating discernment in the tremendous riot of
discussion of Russian Bolshevism which has raged in all parts of the
land. It has been a frenzied battle of epithet and insult, calumny and
accusation.

It is not at all strange or remarkable that their opponents, in Russia
and outside of it, have been ready to charge against the Bolsheviki
every evil condition in Russia, including those which have long
existed under czarism and those which developed during and as a result
of the war. The transportation system had been reduced to something
nearly approaching chaos before the Revolution of March, 1917, as
all reasonably well-informed people know. Yet, notwithstanding these
things, it is a common practice to charge the Bolsheviki with the
destruction of the transportation system and all the evil results
following from it. Industrial production declined greatly in the latter
part of 1916 and the early weeks of 1917. The March Revolution, by
lessening discipline in the factories, had the effect of lessening
production still further. The demoralization of industry was one of the
gravest problems with which Kerensky had to deal. Yet it is rare to
find any allowance made for these important facts in anti-Bolshevist
polemics. The Bolsheviki are charged with having wrought all the havoc
and harm; there is no discrimination, no intellectual balance.

Similarly, many of their opponents have charged against the Russian
Bolsheviki much brutality and crime which in fairness should be
attributed rather to inherent defects of the peasant character,
themselves the product of centuries of oppression and misrule. There
is much that is admirable in the character of the Russian peasant,
and many western writers have found the temptation to idealize it
irresistible. Yet it is well to remember that it is not yet sixty
years since serfdom was abolished; that under a very thin veneer
there remain ignorant selfishness, superstition, and the capacity
for savage brutality which all primitive peoples have. Nothing is
gained, nobody is helped to an understanding of the Russian problem,
if emphasis is laid upon the riotous seizures of land by the peasants
in the early stages of the Bolshevist régime and no attention paid to
the fact that similar riotings and land seizures were numerous and
common in 1906, and that as soon as the Revolution broke out in March,
1917, the peasant uprisings began. Undoubtedly the Bolsheviki must be
held responsible for the fact that they deliberately destroyed the
discipline and restraint which the Land Commissions exercised over the
peasants; that they instigated them to riot and anarchy at the very
time when a peaceful and orderly solution of the land problem was made
certain. It is not necessary to minimize their crime against Russian
civilization: only it is neither true nor wise to attribute the brutal
character of the peasant to Bolshevism.

The abolition of the courts of justice and the forms of judicial
procedure threw upon the so-called “People’s Tribunals” the task of
administering justice--a task which the peasants of whom the village
tribunals were composed, many of them wholly illiterate and wholly
unfit to exercise authority, could not be expected to discharge other
than as they did, with savage brutality. Here is a list of cases taken
from a single issue (April 26, 1918) of the _Dyelo Naroda_ (_People’s
Affair_), organ of the Socialists-Revolutionists:

In Kirensk County the People’s Tribunal ordered a woman, found guilty
of extracting brandy, to be inclosed in a bag and repeatedly knocked
against the ground until dead.

In the Province of Tver the People’s Tribunal has sentenced a young
fellow “to freeze to death” for theft. In a rigid frost he was led out,
clad only in a shirt, and water was poured on him until he turned into
a piece of ice. Out of pity somebody cut his tortures short by shooting
him.

In Sarapulsk County a peasant woman, helped by her lover, killed her
husband. For this crime the People’s Tribunal sentenced the woman to be
buried alive and her lover to die. A grave was dug, into which first
the body of the killed lover was lowered, and then the woman, hands and
feet bound, put on top. She had been covered by almost fifteen feet
of earth when she still kept on yelling “Help!” and “Have pity, dear
people!” The peasants, who witnessed the scene, later said, “But the
life of a woman is as lasting as that of a cat.”

In the village of Bolshaya Sosnovka a shoemaker killed a soldier
who tried to break in during the night. The victim’s comrades, also
soldiers, created a “Revolutionary Tribunal,” which convicted the
shoemaker to “be beheaded at the hands of one of his comrades to whose
lot it should fall to perform the task.” The shoemaker was put to death
in the presence of a crowd of thousands of people.

In the village of Bootsenki five men and three women were accused
of misconduct. The local peasant committee undertook to try them.
After a long trial the committee reached the verdict to punish them
by flogging, giving each one publicly thirty-five strokes with the
rod. One of the women was pregnant and it was decided to postpone the
execution in her case until she had been delivered. The rest were
severely flogged. In connection with this affair an interesting episode
occurred. One of the convicted received only sixteen strokes instead
of thirty-five. At first no attention was paid to it. The next day,
however, rumors spread that the president of the committee had been
bribed, and had thus mitigated the punishment.

Then the committee decreed to flog the president himself, administering
to him fifty strokes with the rod.

In the village of Riepyrky, in Korotoyansk County, the peasants caught
a soldier robbing and decided to drown him. The verdict was carried out
by the members of the Revolutionary Tribunal in the presence of all the
people of the village.

In the village of Vradievka, in Ananyensky County, eleven thieves,
sentenced by the people, were shot.

In the district of Kubanetz, in the Province of Petrograd, carrying out
the verdict of the people, peasants shot twelve men of the fighting
militia who had been caught accepting bribes.

These sentences speak for themselves. They were not expressions of
Bolshevist savagery, for in the village tribunals there were very few
Bolsheviki. As a matter of fact, the same people who meted out these
barbarous sentences treated the agents of the Soviet Government with
equally savage brutality. The Bolsheviki had unleashed the furious
passion of these primitive folk, destroyed their faith in liberty
within the law, and replaced it by license and tyranny. Thus had they
recklessly sown dragons’ teeth.

As early as December, 1917, the Bolshevist press was discussing the
serious conditions which obtained among the peasants in the villages.
It was recognized that no good had resulted from the distribution of
the land by the anarchical methods which had been adopted. The evils
which the leaders of the Mensheviki and the Socialists-Revolutionists
had warned against were seen to be very stern realities. As was
inevitable, the land went, in many cases, not to the most needy, but
to the most powerful and least scrupulous. In these cases there was no
order, no wisdom, no justice, no law save might. It was the old, old
story of

Let him take who has the power;
And let him keep who can.

All that there was of justice and order came from the organizations
set up by the Provisional Government, the organizations the Bolsheviki
sought to destroy. Before they had been in power very long the new
rulers were compelled to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
On December 26, 1917, _Pravda_ said:

Thus far not everybody realizes to what an extent the war
has affected the economic condition of the villages. The
increase in the cost of bread has been a gain only for those
selling it. The demolition of the estates of the landowners
has enriched only those who arrived at the place of plunder
in carriages driven by five horses. By the distribution of
the landowners’ cattle and the rest of their property, those
gained most who were in charge of the distribution. In charge
of the distribution were committees, which, as everybody was
complaining, consisted mainly of wealthy peasants.

One of the most terrible consequences of the lawless anarchy that had
been induced by the Bolsheviki was the internecine strife between
villages, which speedily assumed the dimensions of civil war. It was
common for the peasants in one village to arm themselves and fight
the armed peasants of a neighboring village for the possession of
the lands of an estate. At the instigation of the Bolsheviki and of
German agents, many thousands of peasants had deserted from the army,
taking with them their weapons and as much ammunition as they could.
“Go back to your homes and take your guns with you. Seize the land for
yourselves and defend it!” was the substance of this propaganda. The
peasant soldiers deserted in masses, frequently terrorizing the people
of the villages and towns through which they passed. Several times the
Kerensky Government attempted to disarm these masses of deserters, but
their number was so great that this was not possible, every attempt
to disarm a body of them resolving itself into a pitched battle. In
this way the villages became filled with armed men who were ready to
use their weapons in the war for booty, a sort of savage tribal war,
the village populations being the tribes. In his paper, _Novaya Zhizn_,
Gorky wrote, in June, 1918:

All those who have studied the Russian villages of our day
clearly perceive that _the process of demoralization and
decay is going on there with remarkable speed_. The peasants
have taken the land away from its owners, divided it among
themselves, and destroyed the agricultural implements. _And
they are getting ready to engage in a bloody internecine
struggle for the division of the booty._ In certain districts
the population has consumed the entire grain-supply, including
the seed. In other districts the peasants are hiding their
grain underground, for fear of being forced to share it with
starving neighbors. This situation cannot fail to lead to
chaos, destruction, and murder.[7]

[7] Italics mine.--J. S.

As a matter of fact the “bloody internecine struggle” had been going
on for some time. Even before the overthrow of Kerensky there had been
many of these village wars. The Bolshevist Government did not make any
very serious attempt to interfere with the peasant movements for the
distribution of land for some time after the _coup d’état_. It was too
busy trying to consolidate its position in the cities, and especially
to organize production in the factories. There was not much to be done
with the farms at that season of the year. Early in the spring of 1918
agents of the Soviet Government began to appear in the villages. Their
purpose was to supervise and regulate the distribution of the land.
Since a great deal of the land had already been seized and distributed
by the peasants, this involved some interference on the part of the
central Soviet power in matters which the peasants regarded themselves
as rightfully entitled to settle in their own way.

This gave rise to a bitter conflict between the peasants and the
central Soviet authorities. If the peasants had confiscated and
partitioned the land, however inequitably, they regarded their deed
as conclusive and final. The attempt of the Soviet agents to “revise”
their actions they regarded as robbery. The central Soviet authorities
had against them all the village population with the exception of the
disgruntled few. If the peasants had not yet partitioned the land they
were suspicious of outsiders coming to do it. The land was their own;
the city men had nothing to do with it. In hundreds of villages the
commissions sent by the Bolsheviki to carry out the provisions of the
land program were mobbed and brutally beaten, and in many cases were
murdered. The issue of _Vlast Naroda_ (_Power of the People_) for May,
1918, contained the following:

In Bielo all members of the Soviets have been murdered.

In Soligalich two of the most prominent members of the Soviets
have literally been torn to pieces. Two others have been beaten
half dead.

In Atkarsk several members of the Soviets have been killed. In
an encounter between the Red Guards and the masses, many were
killed and wounded. The Red Guards fled.

In Kleen a crowd entered by force the building occupied by the
Soviets, with the intention of bringing the deputies before
their own court of justice. The latter fled. The Financial
Commissary committed suicide by shooting himself, in order to
escape the infuriated crowd.

In Oriekhovo-Zooyevo the deputies work in their offices guarded
by a most vigilant military force. Even on the streets they are
accompanied by guards armed with rifles and bayonets.

In Penza an attempt has been made on the lives of the Soviet
members. One of the presiding officers has been wounded. The
Soviet building is now surrounded with cannon and machine-guns.

In Svicherka, where the Bolsheviki had ordered a St.
Bartholomew night, the deputies are hunted like wild animals.

In the district of Kaliasinsk the peasantry has decidedly
refused to obey orders of the Soviets to organize an army by
compulsion. Some of the recruiting officers and agitators have
been killed.

Similar acts become more numerous as time goes on. The movement
against the Soviets spreads far and wide, affecting wider and
wider circles of the people.

The warfare between villages over confiscated land was a very serious
matter. Not only did the peasants confiscate and divide among
themselves the great estates, but they took the “excess” lands of
the moderately well-to-do peasants in many instances--that is, all
over and above the average allotment for the village. Those residing
in a village immediately adjoining an estate thus confiscated had,
all other things being equal, a better chance to get the lands than
villagers a little farther distant, though the latter might be in
greater need of the land, owing to the fact that their holdings were
smaller. Again, the village containing many armed men stood a better
chance than the village containing few. Village made war against
village, raising armed forces for the purpose. We get a vivid picture
of this terrible anarchy from the following account in the _Vlast
Naroda_:

The village has taken away the land from the landlords,
farmers, wealthy peasants, and monasteries. It cannot, however,
divide it peacefully, as was to be expected.

The more land there is the greater the appetite for it; hence
more quarrels, misunderstandings, and fights.

In Oboyansk County many villages refused to supply soldiers
when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army. In their
refusal they stated that “in the spring soldiers will be needed
at home in the villages,” not to cultivate the land, but to
protect it with arms against neighboring peasants.

In the Provinces of Kaluga, Kursk, and Voronezh peasant
meetings adopted the following resolutions:

“All grown members of the peasant community have to be home
in the spring. Whoever will then not return to the village
or voluntarily stay away will be forever expelled from the
community.

“These provisions are made for the purpose of having as great a
force as possible in the spring when it comes to dividing the
land.”

The peasantry is rapidly preparing to arm and is partly armed
already. The villages have a number of rifles, cartridges,
hand-grenades, and bombs.

Some villages in the Nieshnov district in the Province of
Mohilev have supplied themselves with machine-guns. The village
of Little Nieshnov, for instance, has decided to order fifteen
machine-guns and has organized a Red Army in order to be able
better to defend a piece of land taken away from the landlords,
and, as they say, that “the neighboring peasants should not
come to cut our hay right in front of our windows, like last
year.” When the neighboring peasants “heard of the decision”
they also procured machine-guns. They have formed an army and
intend to go to Little Nieshnov to cut the hay on the meadows
“under the windows” of the disputed owners.

In the Counties of Schigrovsk, Oboyansk, and Ruilsk, in the
Province of Kursk, almost every small and large village has
organized a Red Guard and is making preparations for the coming
spring war. In these places the peasants have taken rich booty.
They took and devastated 160 estates, 14 breweries, and 26
sugar refineries. Some villages have even marked the spot where
the machine-guns will have to be placed in the spring. In Volsk
County in the Province of Saratov five large villages--Kluchi,
Pletnevka, Ruibni, Shakhan, and Chernavka--expect to have
war when the time comes to divide the 148,500 acres of Count
Orlov-Denisov’s estate. Stubborn fights for meadows and forests
are already going on. They often result in skirmishes and
murder. There are similar happenings in other counties of the
province; for instance, in Petrov, Balashov, and Arkhar.

In the Province of Simbirsk there is war between the community
peasants and shopkeepers. The former have decided to do away
with “Stolypin heirs,” as they call the shopkeepers. The
latter, however, have organized and are ready for a stubborn
resistance. Combats have already taken place. The peasants
demolish farms, and the farmers set fire to towns, villages,
threshing-floors, etc.

We have received from the village of Khanino, in the Province
of Kaluga, the following letter:

“The division of the land leads to war. One village fights
against the other. The wealthy and strong peasants have
decided not to let the poor share the land taken away from
the landlords. In their turn, the poor peasants say, ‘We will
take away from you bourgeois peasants not only the lands of
the landlords, but also your own. We, the toilers, are now the
government.’ This leads to constant quarrels and fights. The
population of the neighboring village consists of so-called
natives and of peasants brought by landlords from the Province
of Orlov. The natives now say to those from Orlov: ‘Get away
from our land and return to your Province of Orlov. Anyhow,
we shall drive you away from here.’ The peasants from Orlov,
however, threaten ‘to kill all the natives.’ Thus there are
daily encounters.”

In another village the peasants have about 5,400 acres of land,
which they bought. For some reason or other they failed to
cultivate it last year. Therefore the peasants of a neighboring
village decided to take it away from them as “superfluous
property which is against the labor status.” The owners,
however, declared:

“First kill us and then you will be able to take away our land.”

In some places the first battles for land have already taken
place.

In the Province of Tambov, near the village of Ischeina, a
serious encounter has taken place between the peasants of the
village of Shleyevka and Brianchevka. Fortunately, among the
peasants of Brianchevka was a wise man, “the village Solomon,”
who first persuaded his neighbors to put out for the peasants
of Shleyevka five buckets of brandy. The latter actually took
the ransom and went away, thus leaving the land to the owners.

In some instances the Bolsheviki instigated the peasants to massacre
hundreds of innocent people in adjacent villages and towns. They did
not stop, or even protest against, the most savage anti-Jewish pogroms.
Charles Dumas, the well-known French Socialist, a Deputy in Parliament,
after spending fifteen months in Russia, published his experiences
and solemnly warned the Socialists of France against Bolshevism.
His book[8] is a terrible chronicle of terrorism, oppression, and
anarchy, all the more impressive because of its restraint and careful
documentation. He cites the following cases:

[8] _La Vérité sur les Bolsheviki_, par Charles Dumas.

On March 18, 1918, the peasants of an adjoining village
organized, in collusion with the Bolsheviki, a veritable St.
Bartholomew night in the city of Kuklovo. About five hundred
bodies of the victims were found afterward, most of them
“Intellectuals.” All residences and stores were plundered and
destroyed, the Jews being among the worst sufferers. Entire
families were wiped out, and for three days the Bolsheviki
would not permit the burial of the dead.

In May, 1918, the city of Korocha was the scene of a horrible
massacre. Thirty officers, four priests, and three hundred
citizens were killed.

In May, 1918, the relations of the Soviet Government to the peasantry
were described by Gorky as the war of the city against the country.
They were, in fact, very similar to the relations of conquering
armies to the subjugated but rebellious and resentful populations of
conquered territories. On May 14th a decree was issued regarding the
control of grain, the famous compulsory grain registration order. This
decree occupies so important a place in the history of the struggle,
and contains so many striking features, that a fairly full summary is
necessary:[9]

[9] The entire text is given as an appendix at the end of the volume.

While the people in the consuming districts are starving,
there are large reserves of unthreshed grain in the producing
districts. This grain is in the hands of the village
bourgeoisie--“tight-fisted village dealers and profiteers”--who
remain “deaf and indifferent to the wailings of starving
workmen and peasant poverty” and hold their grain in the hope
of forcing the government to raise the price of grain, selling
only to the speculators at fabulous prices. “An end must be
put to this obstinacy of the greedy village grain-profiteers.”
To abolish the grain monopoly and the system of fixed prices,
while it would lessen the profits of one group of capitalists,
would also “make bread completely inaccessible to our many
millions of workmen and would subject them to inevitable death
from starvation.” Only food grains absolutely necessary for
feeding their families, on a rationed basis, and for seed
purposes should be permitted to be held by the peasants. “_The
answer to the violence of grain-growers toward the starving
poor must be violence toward the bourgeoisie._”

Continuing its policy of price-fixing and monopolization of the
grain-supply, the government decreed “a merciless struggle with
grain speculators,” compulsion of “each grain-owner to declare the
surplus above what is needed to sow the fields and for personal use,
according to established normal quantities, until the new harvest,
and to surrender the same within a week after the publication of this
decision in each village.” The workmen and poor peasants were called
upon “to unite at once for a merciless struggle with grain-hoarders.”
All persons having a surplus of grain and failing to bring it to the
collecting-points, and those wasting grain on illicit distillation of
alcohol, were to be regarded as “enemies of the people.” They were to
be turned over to the Revolutionary Tribunal, which would “imprison
them for ten years, confiscate their entire property, and drive them
out forever from the communes”; while the distillers must, in addition,
“be condemned to compulsory communal work.”

To carry out this rigorous policy it was provided that any person who
revealed an undeclared surplus of grains should receive one-half the
value of the surplus when it was seized and confiscated, the other half
going to the village commune. “For the more successful struggle with
the food crisis” extraordinary powers were conferred upon the People’s
Food Commissioner, appointed by the Soviet Government. This official
was empowered to (1) publish at his discretion obligatory regulations
regarding the food situation, “exceeding the usual limits of the
People’s Food Commissioner’s competence”; (2) to abrogate the orders of
local food bodies and other organizations contravening his own plans
and orders; (3) to demand from all institutions and organizations the
immediate carrying out of his regulations; (4) “_to use armed forces
in case resistance is shown to the removal of grains or other food
products_; (5) to dissolve or reorganize the food agencies where they
might resist his orders; (6) to discharge, transfer, commit to the
Revolutionary Tribunal, or subject to arrest officers and employees of
all departments and public organizations in case of interference with
his orders; (7) to transfer the powers of such officials, departments,
and institutions,” with the approval of the Council of People’s
Commissaries.

It is not necessary here to discuss the merits of these regulations,
even if we possessed the complete data without which the merit of
the regulations cannot be determined. For our present purpose it
is sufficient to recognize the fact that the peasants regarded the
regulations as oppressive and vigorously resisted their enforcement.
They claimed that the amount of grain--and also of potatoes--they were
permitted to keep was insufficient; that it meant semi-starvation
to them. The peasant Soviets, where such still existed, jealous of
their rights, refused to recognize the authority of the People’s Food
Commissaries. No material increase in the supply of “surplus grain”
was observed. The receiving-stations were as neglected as before. The
poor wretches who, inspired by the rich reward of half the value of the
illegal reserves reported, acted as informers were beaten and tortured,
and the Food Commissaries, who were frequently arrogant and brutal in
their ways, were attacked and in some cases killed.

The Soviet Government had resort to armed force against the peasants.
On May 30, 1918, the Council of People’s Commissaries met and decided
that the workmen of Petrograd and Moscow must form “food-requisitioning
detachments” and “advance in a crusade against the village bourgeoisie,
calling to their assistance the village poor.” From a manifesto issued
by the Council of People’s Commissaries this passage is quoted:

The Central Executive Committee has ordered the Soviets of
Moscow and Petrograd to mobilize 10,000 workers, to arm them
and to equip them for a campaign for the conquest of wheat from
the rapacious and the monopolists. This order must be put into
operation within a week. Every worker called upon to take up
arms must perform his duty without a murmur.

This was, of course, a mobilization for war of the city proletariat
against the peasantry. In an article entitled, “The Policy of Despair,”
published in his paper, the _Novaya Zhizn_, Gorky vigorously denounced
this policy:

The war is declared, the city against the country, a war that
allows an infamous propaganda to say that the worker is to
snatch his last morsel of bread from the half-starved peasant
and to give him in return nothing but Communist bullets and
monetary emblems without value. Cruel war is declared, and
what is the more terrible, a war without an aim. The granaries
of Russia are outside of the Communistic Paradise, but rural
Russia suffers as much from famine as urban Russia.

We are profoundly persuaded--and Lenin and many of the
intelligent Bolsheviks know this very well--that to collect
wheat through these methods that recall in a manner so striking
those employed by General Eichhorn (a Prussian general of
enduring memory for cruelty) in Ukrainia, will never solve the
food crisis. They know that the return to democracy and the
work of the local autonomies will give the best results, and
meantime they have taken this decisive step on the road to
folly.

How completely the Bolshevist methods failed is shown by the official
Soviet journal, _Finances and National Economy_ (No. 38), November,
1918. The following figures refer to a period of three months in the
first half of 1918, and show the number of wagon-loads demanded and the
number actually secured:

_1918_ _Wagon-loads _Wagon-loads _Percentage
Demanded_ Secured_ of Demand
Realized_

April 20,967 1,462 6.97
May 19,780 1,684 7.02
June 17,370 786 4.52

In explanation of these figures the apologists of Bolshevist rule have
said that the failure was due in large part to the control of important
grain-growing provinces by anti-Bolshevist forces. This is typical of
the half-truths which make up so much of the Bolshevist propaganda.
Of course, important grain districts _were_ in the control of the
anti-Bolshevist forces, _but the fact was known to the Bolsheviki and
was taken into account in making their demands_. Otherwise, their
demands would certainly have been much greater. Let us, however,
look at the matter from a slightly different angle and consider how
the scheme worked in those provinces which were wholly controlled by
the Bolsheviki, and where there were no “enemy forces.” The following
figures, taken from the same Soviet journal, refer to the month of
June, 1918:

_Province_ _Wagon-loads _Wagon-loads _Percentage
Demanded_ Secured_ of Demand
Realized_

Voronezh 1,000 2 0.20
Viatka 1,300 14 1.07
Kazan 400 2 0.50
Kursk 500 7 1.40
Orel 300 8 2.67
Tambo 675 98 14.51

On June 11, 1918, a decree was issued establishing the so-called Pauper
Committees, or Committees of the Poor. The decree makes it quite clear
that the object was to replace the village Soviets by these committees,
which were composed in part of militant Bolsheviki from the cities
and in part of the poorest peasants in the villages, including among
these the most thriftless, idle, and dissolute. Clause 2 of the decree
of June 11th provided that “both local residents and chance visitors”
might be elected. Those not admitted were those known to be exploiters
and “tight-fists,” those owning commercial or industrial concerns, and
those hiring labor. An explanatory note was added which stated that
those using hired labor for cultivating land up to a certain area might
be considered eligible. An official description of these Committees
of the Poor was published in _Pravda_, in February, 1919. Of course,
the committees had been established and working for something over six
months when _Pravda_ published this account:

A Committee of the Poor is a close organization formed in all
villages of the very poorest peasants to fight against the
usurers, rich peasants, and clergy, who have been exploiting
the poorest peasants and squeezing out their life-blood for
centuries under the protection of emperors. _Only such of the
very poorest peasants as support the Soviet authority are
elected members of these committees._ These latter register
all grain and available foodstuffs in their villages, as well
as all cattle, agricultural implements, carts, etc. It is
likewise their duty to introduce the new land laws issued by
order of the Soviets of the Workers’, Soldiers’, Peasants’, and
Cossacks’ Deputies.

The fields are cultivated with the implements thus registered,
and the harvest is divided among those who have worked in
accordance with the law. The surplus is supplied to the
starving cities in return for goods of all kinds that the
villagers need. _The motto of the Communist-Bolshevist Party is
impressed upon all members of these committees_--namely, “Help
the poor; do not injure the peasant of average means, but treat
usurers, clergy, and all members of the White Army without
mercy.”

Even this account of these committees of the poor indicates a terrible
condition of strife in the villages. These committees were formed to
take the place of the Soviets, which the Food Commissars, in accordance
with the wide powers conferred upon them, could order suppressed
whenever they chose. Where the solidarity of the local peasantry
could not be broken up “chance visitors,” poor wretches imported for
the purpose, constituted the entire membership of such committees. In
other cases, a majority of the members of the committees were chosen
from among the local residents. There was no appeal from the decision
of these committees. Any member of such a committee having a grudge
against a neighbor could satisfy it by declaring him to be a hoarder,
could arrest him, seize his property and have him flogged or, as
sometimes happened, shot. The military detachments formed to secure
grain and other foodstuffs had to work with these committees where they
already existed, and to form them where none yet existed.

The _Severnaya Oblast_, July 4, 1918, published detailed instructions
of how the food-requisitioning detachments were to proceed in villages
where committees of the poor had not yet been formed. They were to
first call a meeting, not of all the peasants in a village, but only
of the very poorest peasants and such other residents as were well
known to be loyal supporters of the Soviet Government. From the number
thus assembled five or seven must be selected as a committee. When
formed this committee must demand, as a first step, the surrendering
of all arms by the rest of the population. This disarming of the
people must be very vigorously and thoroughly carried out; refusal to
surrender arms to the committee, or concealing arms from the committee,
involved severe punishment. Persons guilty of either offense might be
ordered shot by the Committee of the Poor, the Food Commissar or the
Revolutionary Tribunal. After the disarmament had been proclaimed,
three days’ notice was to be served upon the peasants to deliver their
“surplus” grain--that is, all over and above the amount designated by
the committee--at the receiving station. Failure to do this entailed
severe penalties; destroying or concealing grain was treason and
punishable by death at the hands of a firing-squad.

The war between the peasantry, on the one hand, and the Bolshevist
officials, the food-requisitioning detachments and the pauper
committees, on the other, went on throughout the summer of 1918.
The first armed detachments reached the villages toward the end of
June. From that time to the end of December the sanguinary struggle
was maintained. According to _Izvestia_ of the Food Commissariat,
December, 1918, the Food Army consisted of 3,000 men in June and
36,500 in December. In the course of the struggle this force had lost
7,309 men, killed, wounded, and sick. In other words, the casualties
amounted to 30 per cent. of the highest number ever engaged. These
figures of themselves bear eloquent witness to the fierce resistance
of the peasantry. It was a common occurrence for a food-requisitioning
detachment to enter a village and begin to search for concealed weapons
and grain and to be at once met with machine-gun and rifle-fire,
the peasants treating them as robbers and enemies. Sometimes the
villagers were victorious and the Bolshevist forces were driven away.
In almost every such case strong reinforcements were sent, principally
Lettish or Chinese troops, to subdue the rebel village and wipe out
the “counter-revolutionaries” and “bourgeoisie”--that is to say,
nine-tenths of the peasants in the village.

Under these conditions things went from bad to worse. Naturally, there
was some increase in the amount of grain turned in at the receiving
stations, but the increase was not commensurate with the effort and
cost of obtaining it. In particular, it did not sustain the host
of officials, committees, inspectors, and armed forces employed in
intimidating the peasants. One of the most serious results was the
alarming decline of cultivation. The incentive to labor had been taken
away from the hard-working, thrifty peasants. Their toil was penalized,
in fact. A large part of the land ordinarily tilled was not planted
that autumn and for spring sowing there was even less cultivation. The
peasants saw that the industrious and careful producers had most of
the fruits of their labors taken from them and were left with meager
rations, which meant semi-starvation, while the idle, thriftless,
and shiftless “poorest peasants” fared much better, taking from the
industrious and competent. Through the peasantry ran the fatal cry:
“Why should we toil and starve? Let us all be idle and live well as
‘poor peasants’!”

Thus far, we have followed the development of the agrarian policy
of the Bolsheviki through two stages: First of all, peasant Soviets
were recognized and regarded as the basis of the whole system of
agricultural production. It was found that these did not give
satisfactory results; that each Soviet cared only for its own village
prosperity; that the peasants held their grain for high prices while
famine raged in the cities. Then, secondly, all the village Soviets
were shorn of their power and all those which were intractable--a
majority of them--suppressed, their functions being taken over by
state-appointed officials, the Food Commissars and the Committees
of the Poor acting under the direction of these. As we shall see in
subsequent chapters, these stages corresponded in a very striking way
to the first two stages of industrial organization under Bolshevist
rule.

The chairman of the Perm Committee of the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionists, M. C. Eroshkin, visited the United States in
the winter of 1918-19. It was the good fortune of the present writer
to become acquainted with this brilliant Russian Socialist leader and
to obtain much information from him. Few men possess a more thorough
understanding of the Russian agrarian problem than Mr. Eroshkin, who
during the régime of the Provisional Government was the representative
for the Perm District of the Ministry of Agriculture and later became a
member of the Provisional Government of Ural. In March, 1919, he said:

The Russian peasant could, in all fairness, scarcely be
suspected of being a capitalist, and even according to the
Soviet constitution, no matter how twisted, he could not be
denied a vote. But fully aware that the peasants constitute
a majority and are, as a whole, opposed to the Bolsheviki,
the latter have destroyed the Soviets in the villages and
instead of these they have created so-called “Committees of
the Poor”--_i.e._, aggregations of inebriates, propertyless,
worthless, and work-hating peasants. For, whoever wishes to
work can find work in the Russian village which is always short
of agricultural help. These “Committees of the Poor” have been
delegated to represent the peasantry of Russia.

Small wonder that the peasants are opposed to this scheme which
has robbed them of self-government. Small wonder that their
hatred for these “organizations” reaches such a stage that
entire settlements are rising against these Soviets and their
pretorians, the Red Guardsmen, and in their fury are not only
murdering these Soviet officials, but are practising fearful
cruelties upon them, as happened in December, 1918, in the
Governments of Pskov, Kaluga, and Tver.

By removing and arresting all those delegates who are
undesirable to them, the Bolsheviki have converted these
Soviets into organizations loyal to themselves, and, of course,
fear to think of a true general election, for that will seal
their doom at once.

Mr. Eroshkin, like practically every other leader of the Russian
peasants’ movement, is an anti-Bolshevik and his testimony may be
regarded as biased. Let us, therefore, consider what Bolshevist writers
have said in their own press.

_Izvestia_ of the Provincial Soviets, January 18, 1919, published the
following:

The Commissaries were going through the Tzaritzin County in
sumptuous carriages, driven by three, and often by six, horses.
A great array of adjutants and a large suite accompanied these
Commissaries and an imposing number of trunks followed along.
They made exorbitant demands upon the toiling population,
coupled with assaults and brutality. Their way of squandering
money right and left is particularly characteristic. In some
houses the Commissaries gambled away and spent on intoxicants
large sums. The hard-working population looked upon these
orgies as upon complete demoralization and failure of duty to
the world revolution.

In the same official journal, four days later, January 22, 1919,
Kerzhentzev, the well-known Bolshevik, wrote:

The facts describing the village Soviet of the Uren borough
present a shocking picture which is no doubt typical of all
other corners of our provincial Soviet life. The chairman of
this village Soviet, Rekhalev, and his nearest co-workers have
done all in their power to antagonize the population against
the Soviet rule. Rekhalev himself has often been found in an
intoxicated condition and he has frequently assaulted the local
inhabitants. _The beating-up of visitors to the Soviet office
was an ordinary occurrence._ In the village of Bierezovka _the
peasants have been thrashed not only with fists, but have often
been assaulted with sticks, robbed of their footwear, and cast
into damp cellars on bare earthen floors_. The members of the
Varnavinsk _Ispolkom_ (Executive Committee), Glakhov, Morev,
Makhov, and others, have gone even farther. They have organized
“requisition parties” which were nothing else but organized
pillagings, in the course of which _they have used wire-wrapped
sticks on the recalcitrants_. The abundant testimony, verified
by the Soviet Commission, portrays a very striking picture
of violence. When these members of the Executive Committee
arrived at the township of Sadomovo they commenced to assault
the population and to rob them of their household belongings,
such as quilts, clothing, harness, etc. No receipts for the
requisitioned goods were given and no money paid. _They even
resold to others on the spot some of the breadstuffs which they
had requisitioned._

In the same paper (No. 98), March 9, 1919, another Bolshevist writer,
Sosnovsky, reported on conditions in the villages of Tver Province as
follows:

The local Communist Soviet workers behave themselves, with rare
exception, in a disgusting manner. Misuse of power is going on
constantly.

_Izvestia_ published, January 5, 1919, the signed report of a
Bolshevist official, Latzis, complaining that “in the Velizsh county
of the Province of Vitebsk _they are flogging the peasants by the
authority of the local Soviet Committee_.” On May 14, 1919, the same
journal published the following article concerning conditions in this
province:

Of late there has been going on in the village a really
scandalous orgy. It is necessary to call attention to the
destructive work of the scoundrels who worked themselves into
responsible positions. Evidently all the good and unselfish
beginnings of the workmen’s and peasants’ authority were either
purposely or unintentionally perverted by these adventurers
in order to undermine the confidence of the peasants in the
existing government in order to provoke dissatisfaction
and rebellion. It is no exaggeration to say that no open
counter-revolutionary or enemy of the proletariat has done
as much harm to the Socialist republic as the charlatans of
this sort. Take, as an instance, the third district of the
government of Vitebsk, the county of Veliashkov. Here the
taxes imposed upon the peasants were as follows: “P. Stoukov,
owning 17 dessiatines, was compelled to pay a tax of 5,000
rubles, while U. Voprit, owning 24 dessiatines, paid only
500 rubles. S. Grigoriev paid 2,000 on 29 dessiatines, while
Ivan Tselov paid 8,000 on 23 dessiatines.” (Quoting some more
instances, the writer adds that the soil was alike in all
cases. He then brings some examples of the wrongs committed by
the requisitioning squads.)

The same issue of this Soviet organ contained the report of an official
Bolshevist investigation of the numerous peasant uprisings. This
report stated that “The local communists behave, with rare exceptions,
abominably, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that we were
able to explain to the peasants that we were also communists.”

_Izvestia_ also published an appeal from one Vopatin against the
intolerable conditions prevailing in his village in the Province of
Tambov:

Help! we are perishing! At the time when we are starving do
you know what is going on in the villages? Take, for instance,
our village, Olkhi. Speculation is rife there, especially with
salt, which sells at 40 rubles a pound. What does the militia
do? What do the Soviets do? When it is reported to them they
wave their hands and say, “This is a normal phenomenon.” Not
only this, but the militiamen, beginning with the chief and
including some communists, are all engaged in brewing their
own alcohol, which sells for 70 rubles a bottle. Nobody who is
in close touch with the militia is afraid to engage in this
work. Hunger is ahead of us, but neither the citizens nor the
“authorities” recognize it. The people’s judge also drinks,
and if one wishes to win a case one only needs to treat him
to a drink. We live in a terrible filth. There is no soap.
People and horses all suffer from skin diseases. Epidemics are
inevitable in the summer. If Moscow will pay no attention to
us, then we shall perish. _We had elections for the village and
county Soviets, but the voting occurred in violation of the
Constitution of the Soviet Government._

_As a result of this a number of village capitalists, who,
under the guise of communists, entered the party in order to
avoid the requisitions and contributions, were elected._ The
laboring peasantry is thus being turned against the government,
and this at a time when the hosts of Kolchak are advancing from
the east.

Lenin, in his report to the Eighth Congress of the Communist Party last
April, published in _Pravda_, April 9, 1919, faced the seriousness of
the situation indicated by these reports. He said:

All class-conscious workmen, of Petrograd, Ivano-Voznesensk,
and Moscow, who have been in the villages, tell us of instances
of many misunderstandings, of misunderstandings that could not
be solved, it seemed, _and of conflicts of the most serious
nature_, all of which were, however, solved by sensible workmen
who did not speak according to the book, but in language which
the people could understand, and not like an officer allowing
himself to issue orders, though unacquainted with village life,
but like a comrade explaining the situation and appealing
to their feelings as toilers. And by such explanation one
attained what could not be attained by thousands who conducted
themselves like commanders or superiors.

In the _Severnaya Communa_, May 10, 1919, another Bolshevist official,
Krivoshayev, reported:

The Soviet workers are taking from the peasants chicken, geese,
bread, and butter without paying for it. In some households
of these poverty-stricken folk they are confiscating even the
pillows and the samovars and everything they can lay their
hands on. The peasants naturally feel very bitterly toward the
Soviet rule.

Here, then, is a mass of Bolshevist testimony, published in the
official press of the Soviet Government and the Communist Party.
It cannot be set aside as “capitalist misrepresentation,” or as
“lying propaganda of the Socialists-Revolutionists.” These and
other like phrases which have been so much on the lips of our
pro-Bolshevist Liberals and Socialists are outworn; they cannot avail
against the evidence supplied by the Bolsheviki themselves. If we
wanted to draw upon the mass of similar evidence published by the
Socialists-Revolutionists and other Socialist groups opposed to the
Bolsheviki, it would be easy to fill hundreds of pages. The apologists
of Bolshevism have repeatedly assured us that the one great achievement
of the Bolsheviki, concerning which there can be no dispute, is the
permanent solution of the land problem, and that as a result the
Bolsheviki are supported by the great mass of the peasantry. Against
that silly fable let one single fact stand as a sufficient refutation:
According to the _Severnaya Communa_, September 4, 1919, the Military
Supply Bureau of Petrograd alone had sent, up to April 1, 1919, 225
armed military requisitioning detachments to various villages. Does not
that fact alone indicate the true attitude of the peasants?

Armed force did not bring much food, however. The peasants concealed
and hoarded their supplies. They resisted the soldiers, in many
instances. When they were overcome they became sullen and refused to
plant more than they needed for their own use. Extensive curtailment
of production was their principal means of self-defense against what
they felt to be a great injustice. According to _Economicheskaya
Zhizn_ (No. 54), 1919, this was the principal reason for the enormous
decline of acreage under cultivation--a decline of 13,500,000 acres
in twenty-eight provinces--and the main cause of the serious shortage
of food grains. Instead of exporting a large surplus of grain, Tambov
Province was stricken with famine, and the plight of other provinces
was almost as bad.

In the Province of Tambov the peasants rose and drove away the Red
Guards. In the Bejetsh district, Tver Province, 17,000 peasants rose in
revolt against the Soviet authorities, according to Gregor Alexinsky.
A punitive detachment sent there by Trotsky suppressed this rising
with great brutality, robbing the peasants, flogging many of them, and
killing many others. In Briansk, Province of Orel, the peasants and
workmen rose against the Soviet authorities in November, 1919, being
led by a former officer of the Fourth Soviet Army named Sapozhnikov.
Lettish troops suppressed this uprising in a sanguinary manner. In the
villages of Kharkov Province no less than forty-nine armed detachments
appeared, seeking to wrest grain from the peasants, who met the
soldiers with rifles and machine-guns. This caused Trotsky to send
large punitive expeditions, consisting principally of Lettish troops,
and many lives were sacrificed. Yet, despite the bloodshed, only a
small percentage of the grain expected was ever obtained. There were
serious peasant revolts against Soviet rule in many other places.

The District Extraordinary Commissions and the revolutionary tribunals
were kept busy dealing with cases of food-hoarding and speculation. A
typical report is the following taken from the Bolshevist _Derevenskaia
Communa_ (No. 222), October 2, 1919. This paper complained that the
peasants were concealing and hoarding grain for the purpose of selling
it to speculators at fabulous prices:

Every day the post brings information concerning concealment of
grain and other foodstuffs, and the difficulties encountered by
the registration commissions in their work in the villages. All
this shows the want of consciousness among the masses, who do
not realize what chaos such tactics introduce into the general
life of the country.

No one can eat more than the human organism can absorb; the
ration--and that not at all a “famine” one--is fixed. Every one
is provided for, and yet--concealment, concealment everywhere,
in the hope of selling grain to town speculators at fabulous
prices.

How much is being concealed, and what fortunes are made by
profiteering, may be seen from the following example: The
Goretsky Extraordinary Commission has fined Irina Ivashkevich,
a citizeness of Lapinsky village, for burying 25,000 rubles’
worth of grain in a hole in her back yard.

Citizeness Irina Ivashkevich has much money, but little
understanding of what she is doing.

Neither force nor threats could overcome the resistance of
the peasants. In the latter part of November, 1919, sixteen
food-requisitioning detachments of twenty-five men each were sent from
Petrograd to the Simbirsk Province, according to the _Izvestia_ of
Petrograd. They were able to secure only 215 tons of grain at a very
extraordinary price. Speculation had raised the price of grain to 600
rubles per pood of 36 pounds. The paper _Trud_ reported at the same
time that the delegates of forty-five labor organizations in Petrograd
and Moscow, who left for the food-producing provinces to seek for
non-rationed products, returned after two months wholly unsuccessful,
having spent an enormous amount of money in their search. Their failure
was due in part to a genuine shortage, but it was due in part also
to systematic concealment and hoarding for speculation on the part
of the peasants. Much of this illicit speculation and trading was
carried on with the very Soviet officials who were charged with its
suppression![10]

[10] The _Bulletin_ of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
(No. 25), February 24, 1919, reports such a case. Many other similar
references might be quoted. _Pravda_, July 4, 1919, said that many
of those sent to requisition grain from the peasants were themselves
“gross speculators.”

How utterly the attempt to wrest the food from the peasants by armed
force failed is evidenced by figures published in the Soviet journal,
_Finances and National Economy_ (No. 310). The figures show the amounts
of food-supplies received in Petrograd in the first nine months of 1918
as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year. The
totals include flour, rye, wheat, barley, oats, and peas:

_Jan.-Mar._ _Apr.-June_ _July-Sept._ _Total for
Nine Mos._
_Tons_ _Tons_ _Tons_ _Tons_

In 1913 24,626 24,165 20,438 69,229
In 1918 12,001 5,388 2,241 19,639

If we take barley and oats, which were drawn mainly from the northern
and central provinces and from the middle Volga--territories occupied
by the Bolsheviki and free from “enemy forces”--we find that the same
story is told: in the three months July-September, 1918, 105 tons of
barley were received, as against 1,245 tons in the corresponding period
of the previous year. Of oats the amount received in the three months
of July-September, 1918, was 175 tons as against 3,105 tons in the
corresponding period of 1917.

Armed force failed as completely as Gorky had predicted it would.
References to the French Revolution are often upon the lips of the
leaders of Bolshevism, and they have slavishly copied its form and even
its terminology. It might have been expected, therefore, that they
would have remembered the French experience with the Law of Maximum
and its utter and tragic failure, and that they would have learned
something therefrom, at least enough to avoid a repetition of the same
mistakes as were made in 1793. There is no evidence of such learning,
however. For that matter, is there any evidence that they have learned
anything from history?

Not only was armed force used in a vain attempt to wrest the grain
from the peasants, but similar methods were relied upon to force the
peasants into the Red Army. On May 1, 1919, _Pravda_, official organ of
the Communist Party, published the following announcement:

From the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party announces
the following--

_To all provincial committees of the Communist Party, to
Provincial Military Commissaries._

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, at the
session of April 23d, unanimously adopted the decree to bring
the middle and poor peasants into the struggle against the
counter-revolution. According to this decree, every canton must
send 10 to 20 strong, capable soldiers, who can act as nuclei
for Red Army units in those places to which they will be sent.

Just as they had resisted all efforts to wrest away their grain and
other foodstuffs by force, so the peasants resisted the attempts at
forcible mobilization. Conscripted peasants who had been mobilized
refused to go to the front and attempted mass desertions in many
places, notably, however, in Astrakhan. These struggles went on
throughout the early summer of 1919, but in the end force triumphed. On
August 12, 1919, Trotsky wrote in _Pravda_:

The mobilization of the 19-year-old and part of the 18-year-old
men, the inrush of the peasants who before refused to appear
in answer to the mobilization decree, all of this is creating a
powerful, almost inexhaustible, source from which to build up
our army.... From now on any resistance to local authorities,
any attempt to retain and protect any valuable and experienced
military worker is deliberate sabotage.... No one should dare
to forget that all Soviet Russia is an armed camp.... All
Soviet institutions are obliged, immediately, within the next
months, not only to furnish officers’ schools with the best
quarters, but, in general, they must furnish these schools with
such material and special aids as will make it possible for the
students to work in the most intensive manner....

Bitter as the conflict was during this period and throughout 1919, it
was, nevertheless, considerably less violent than during the previous
year. This was due to the fact that the Bolsheviki had modified their
policy in dealing with the peasants in some very important respects.
Precisely as they had manifested particular hatred toward the
bourgeoisie in the cities, and made their appeal to the proletariat,
so they had, from the very first, manifested a special hatred toward
the great body of peasants of the “middle class”--that is to say, the
fairly well-to-do and successful peasant--and made their appeal to the
very poorest and least successful. The peasants who owned their own
farms, possessed decent stock, and perhaps employed some assistance,
were regarded as the “rural bourgeoisie” whom it was necessary to
expropriate. The whole appeal of the Bolsheviki, so far as the peasant
was concerned, was to the element corresponding to the proletariat,
owning nothing. The leaders of the Bolsheviki believed that only the
poorest section of the peasantry could make common cause with the
proletariat; that the greater part of the peasantry belonged with
the bourgeoisie. They relied upon the union of the urban proletariat
and the poorest part of the peasantry, led by the former, to furnish
the sinews of the Revolution. Over and over again Lenin’s speeches
and writings prior to April, 1919, refer to “the proletariat and the
poorest peasants”; over and over again he emphasizes this union, always
with the more or less definite statement that “the proletariat” must
lead and “the poorest peasants” follow.

In April, 1919, at the Congress of the Russian Communist Party, Lenin
read a report on the attitude of the proletariat and the Soviet power
to the peasantry which marked a complete change of attitude, despite
the fact that Lenin intimated that neither he nor the party had ever
believed anything else. “No sensible Socialist ever thought that
we might apply violence to the middle peasantry,” he said. He even
disclaimed any intention to expropriate the rich peasants, if they
would refrain from counter-revolutionary tendencies! Of course, in thus
affirming his orthodoxy while throwing over an important article of his
creed, Lenin was simply conforming to an old and familiar practice.
When we remember how he berated the Menshevist Social Democrats and
declared them not to be Socialists because their party represented
“fairly prosperous peasants,”[11] and the fact that the Soviet
Constitution itself sets forth that the dictatorship to be set up is
“of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry,[12]”
Lenin’s attempt to make it appear that he had always regarded the
middle and rich peasantry with such benign toleration can only move us
to laughter.

[11] _The New International_, April, 1918.

[12] Article II, chap. v, paragraph 9.

To present Lenin’s change of front fairly it is necessary to quote at
considerable length from his two speeches at the Congress as reported
in _Pravda_, April 5 and 9, 1919:

During the long period of the bourgeois rule the peasant
has always supported the bourgeois authority and was on
the side of the bourgeoisie. This is understandable if one
takes into account the economic strength of the bourgeoisie
and the political methods of its rule. We cannot expect the
middle peasant to come over to our side immediately. But
if we direct our policy correctly, then after a certain
period hesitation will cease and the peasant may come over
to our side. Engels, who, together with Marx, laid the
foundations of scientific Marxism--that is, of the doctrine
which our party follows constantly and particularly in time
of revolution--Engels already established the fact that the
peasantry is differentiated with respect to their land holdings
into small, middle, and large; and this differentiation for the
overwhelming majority of the European countries exists to-day.
Engels said, “Perhaps it will not be necessary to suppress by
force even the large peasantry in all places.” And no sensible
Socialist ever thought that we might ever apply violence to
the middle peasantry (the smaller peasantry is our friend).
This is what Engels said in 1894, a year before his death,
when the agrarian question was the burning question of the
day. This point of view shows us that truth which is sometimes
forgotten, though with which we have always theoretically been
in accord. With respect to landlords and capitalists our task
is complete expropriation. But we do not permit any violence
with respect to the middle peasant. Even with respect to the
rich peasant, we do not speak with the same determination as
with regard to the bourgeoisie, “Absolute expropriation of the
rich peasantry.” In our program this difference is emphasized.
We say, “The suppression of the resistance of the peasantry,
the suppression of its counter-revolutionary tendencies.” This
is not complete expropriation.

The fundamental difference in our attitude toward the
bourgeoisie and toward the middle peasantry is complete
expropriation of the bourgeoisie, but union with the middle
peasantry that does not exploit others. This fundamental line
_in theory_ is recognized by all. _In practice_ this line is
not always observed strictly, and _local workers have not
learned to observe it at all_. When the proletariat overthrew
the bourgeois authority and established its own and set about
to create a new society, the question of the middle peasantry
came into the foreground. Not a single Socialist in the world
has denied the fact that the establishment of communism
will proceed differently in those countries where there is
large land tenure. This is the most elementary of truths and
from this truth it follows that as we approach the tasks of
construction our main attention should be concentrated to a
certain extent precisely on the middle peasantry. Much will
depend on how we have defined our attitude toward the middle
peasantry. Theoretically, this question has been decided, but
we know from our own experience the difference between the
theoretical decision of a question and the practical carrying
out of the decision.

* * * * *

... All remember with what difficulty, and after how many
months, we passed from workmen’s control to workmen’s
administration of industry, and that was development within our
class, within the proletarian class, with which we had always
had relations. But now we must define our attitude toward a new
class, toward a class which the city workmen do not know. We
must define our attitude toward a class which does not have a
definite steadfast position. The proletariat as a mass is for
Socialism; the bourgeoisie is against Socialism; it is easy
to define the relations between two such classes. But when we
come to such a group as the middle peasantry, then it appears
that this is such a kind of class that it hesitates. The middle
peasant is part property-owner and part toiler. He does not
exploit other representatives of the toilers. For decades he
has had to struggle hard to maintain his position and he has
felt the exploitation of the landlord-capitalists. But at the
same time he is a property-owner.

Therefore our attitude toward this class presents enormous
difficulties. On the basis of our experience of more than a
year, and of proletariat work in the village for more than a
year, and in view of the fact that there has already taken
place a class differentiation in the village, we must be most
careful not to be hasty, not to theorize without understanding,
not to consider ready what has not been worked out. In the
resolution which the committee proposes to you, prepared by
the agrarian section, which one of the next speakers will
read to you, you will find many warnings on this point. From
the economic point of view it is clear that we must go to the
assistance of the middle peasant. On this point theoretically
there is no doubt. But with our level of culture, with our
lack of cultural and technical forces which we could offer
to the village, and with that helplessness with which we
often go to the villages, comrades often apply compulsion,
which spoils the whole cause. Only yesterday one comrade
gave me a small pamphlet entitled, _Instructions for Party
Activity in the Province of Nizhninovgorod_, a publication of
the Nizhninovgorod Committee of the Russian Communist Party
(Bolsheviki), and in this pamphlet I read, for example, on page
41, “The decree on the extraordinary revolutionary tax should
fall with its whole weight on the shoulders of the village rich
peasant speculators, and in general on the middle elements of
the peasantry.” Now here one may see that people have indeed
“understood,” or is this a misprint? But it is not admissible
for such misprints to appear. Or is this the result of hurried,
hasty work, which shows how dangerous haste is in a matter like
this? Or have we here simply a failure to understand, though
this is the very worst supposition which I really do not wish
to make with reference to our comrades at Nizhninovgorod? It is
quite possible that this is simply an oversight. Such instances
occur in practice, as one of the comrades in the commission has
related. The peasants surrounded him and each peasant asked:
“Please define, am I a middle peasant or not? I have two horses
and one cow. I have two cows and one horse,” etc. And so this
agitator who was traveling over entire districts had to use a
kind of thermometer in order to take each peasant and tell him
whether he was a middle peasant or not. But to do this he had
to know the whole history and economic life of this particular
peasant and his relations to lower and higher groups, and of
course we cannot know this with exactness.

Here one must have practical experience and knowledge of
local conditions, and we have not these things as yet. We are
not at all ashamed to admit this; we must admit this openly.
We have never been Utopists and have never imagined that we
could build up the communistic society with the pure hands
of pure communists who would be born and educated in a pure
communistic society. Such would be children’s fables. We must
build communism on the ruins of capitalism, and only that class
which has been tempered in the struggle against capitalism
can do this. You know very well that the proletariat is not
without the faults and weaknesses of the capitalistic society.
It struggles for Socialism, and at the same time against its
own defects. The best and most progressive portion of the
proletariat which has been carrying on a desperate struggle in
the cities for decades was able to imitate in the course of
this struggle all the culture of city life, and to a certain
extent did acquire it. You know that the village even in the
most progressive countries was condemned to ignorance. Of
course, the cultural level of the village will be raised by
us, but that is a matter of years and years. This is what
our comrades everywhere forget, and this is what every word
that comes to us from the village portrays with particular
clearness, when the word comes not from local intellectuals and
local officials, but from people who are watching the work in
the village from a practical point of view.

* * * * *

When we speak of the tasks in connection with work in the
villages, in spite of all difficulties, in spite of the
fact that our knowledge has been directed to the immediate
suppression of exploiters, we must nevertheless remember and
not forget that in the villages with relation to the middle
peasantry the task is of a different nature. All conscious
workmen, of Petrograd, Ivanovo-Vosnesensk, and Moscow, who
have been in the villages, tell us of instances of many
misunderstandings, of misunderstandings that could not be
solved, it seemed, and of conflicts of the most serious nature,
all of which were, however, solved by sensible workmen who did
not speak according to the book, but in language which the
people could understand, and not like an officer allowing
himself to issue orders though unacquainted with village life,
but like a comrade explaining the situation and appealing
to their feelings as toilers. And by such explanation one
attained what could not be attained by thousands who conducted
themselves like commanders or superiors.

The resolution which we now present for your attention is drawn
up in this spirit. I have tried in this report to emphasize
the main principles behind this resolution, and its general
political significance. I have tried to show, and I trust I
have succeeded, that from the point of view of the interests
of the revolution as a whole we have not made any changes.
We have not altered our line of action. The White-Guardists
and their assistants shout and will continue to shout that we
have changed. Let them shout. That does not disturb us. We are
developing our aims in an absolutely logical manner. From the
task of suppressing the bourgeoisie we must now transfer our
attention to the task of building up the life of the middle
peasantry. We must live with the middle peasantry in peace. The
middle peasantry in a communistic society will be on our side
only if we lighten and improve its economic conditions. If we
to-morrow could furnish a hundred thousand first-class tractors
supplied with gasolene and machinists (you know, of course,
that for the moment this is dreaming), then the middle peasant
would say, “I am for the Commune.” But in order to do this we
must first defeat the international bourgeoisie; we must force
them to give us these tractors, or we must increase our own
production so that we can ourselves produce them. Only thus is
the question stated correctly.

The peasant needs the industries of the cities and cannot
live without them and the industries are in our hands. If
we approach the situation correctly, then the peasant will
thank us because we will bring him the products from the
cities--implements and culture. It will not be exploiters
who will bring him these things, not landlords, but his own
comrades, workers whom he values very deeply. The middle
peasant is very practical and values only actual assistance,
quite carelessly thrusting aside all commands and instructions
from above.

First help him and then you will secure his confidence. If this
matter is handled correctly, if each step taken by our group in
the village, in the canton, in the food-supply detachment, or
in any organization, is carefully made, is carefully verified
from this point of view, then we shall win the confidence of
the peasant, and only then shall we be able to move forward.
Now we must give him assistance. We must give him advice, and
this must not be the order of a commanding officer, but the
advice of a comrade. The peasant then will be absolutely for us.

* * * * *

... We learned how to overthrow the bourgeoisie and suppress
it and we are very proud of what we have done. We have not
yet learned how to regulate our relations with the millions
of middle peasants and how to win their confidence. We must
say this frankly; but we have understood the task and we have
undertaken it and we say to ourselves with full hope, complete
knowledge, and entire decision: We shall solve this task, and
then Socialism will be absolute, invincible.

At the same time, at a meeting of the Moscow Soviet, Kalinin, a peasant
and a Bolshevik, was elected president of the Central Executive
Committee. His speech, reported in _Severnaya Communa_, April 10, 1919,
sounded the same note as the speeches of Lenin--conciliation of the
middle peasantry:

My election is the symbol of the union of the proletariat
and the peasantry. At the present moment when all
counter-revolutionary forces are pressing in on us, such a
union is particularly valuable. The peasantry was always our
natural ally, but in recent times one has heard notes of doubt
among the peasants; parties hostile to us are trying to drive
a wedge between us and the peasantry. _We must convince the
middle peasants that the working-class, having in its hands
the factories, has not attacked, and will not attack, the
small, individual farms of the peasant._ This can be done all
the more easily because neither the old nor the new program of
communists says that we will forcibly centralize the peasant
lands and drive them into communes, etc. Quite to the contrary,
we say definitely that we will make every effort to readjust
and raise the level of the peasant economic enterprises,
helping both technically and in other ways, and I shall adhere
to this policy in my new post. Here is the policy we shall
follow:

We shall point out to province, district, and other executive
committees that they should make every effort in the course
of the collecting of the revolutionary tax, _to the end that
it should not be a heavy burden on the middle peasant_; that
they should make self-administration less costly and reduce
bureaucratic routine. We shall make every effort so that the
local executive committees shall not put obstacles in the way
of exchange of articles of agriculture and of home consumption
between cantons and peasants--that is, the purchase of farm
and household utensils that are sold at fairs. We shall try to
eliminate all friction and misunderstandings between provinces
and cantons. We shall appeal to the local executive committees
not only not to interfere with, but, on the contrary, to
support, separate peasant economic enterprises which, because
of their special character, have a special value. The mole of
history is working well for us; the hour of world revolution
is near, though we must not close our eyes to the fact that
at the present moment it is all the more difficult for us to
struggle with counter-revolution because of the disorganization
of our economic life. Frequently they prophesied our failure,
but we still hold on and we shall find new sources of strength
and support. Further, each of us must answer the question as
to how to adjust production, carry out our enormous tasks,
and use our great natural resources. In this field the unions
of Petersburg and Moscow are doing very much, because they
are the organizing centers from whose examples the provinces
will learn. Much has been done in preparing products, but much
still has to be done. We in Petersburg fed ourselves for three
months, from the end of June to the beginning of September, on
products from our Petersburg gardens.

The new attitude toward the peasantry revealed in the speeches of
Lenin and Kalinin was already manifesting itself in the practical
policy of the Soviet power. Greatly alarmed by the spread of famine in
the cities, and by the stout resistance of the peasants to the armed
requisitioning detachments, which amounted to civil war upon a large
scale, they had established in many county towns in the grain-producing
provinces central exchanges to which the peasants were urged to bring
their grain to be exchanged for the manufactured goods so sorely
needed by them. The attitude toward the peasants was more tolerant
and friendly; the brutal strife practically disappeared. This did not
bring grain to the cities, however, in any considerable quantity. The
peasants found that the price offered for their grain was too low,
and the prices demanded for the manufactured goods too high. According
to _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, No. 443, the fixed
price of grain was only 70 per cent. higher than in the month preceding
the Bolshevist _coup d’état_, whereas the prices on manufactured goods
needed by the peasants, including shoes, clothing, household utensils,
and small tools, average more than 2,800 per cent. higher. The peasant
saw himself once more as a victim of the frightful parasitism of the
cities and refused to part with his grain. The same issue of _Izvestia_
explained that the exchange stations “have functioned but feebly and
have brought very little relief to the villages”; that the stations
soon became storehouses for “bread taken away from the peasants by
force at the fixed prices.” When cajoling failed to move the peasants
the old agencies of force were resorted to. The grain was forcibly
taken and the peasants were paid in paper currency so depreciated as to
be almost worthless. Thus the villages were robbed of grain and, at the
same time, left destitute of manufactured goods.

At the Congress of the Communist Party, following the speeches of
Lenin, from which we have quoted, it was decided that the work of
securing grain and other foodstuffs should be turned over to the
co-operatives. A few days earlier, according to _Pravda_, March 15,
1919, a decree was issued permitting, in a number of provinces, “free
sales of products, including foodstuffs.” This meant that the peasants
were free to bring their supplies of grain out in the open and to
sell them at the best prices they could get. The situation was thus
somewhat improved, but not everywhere nor for long. Many of the local
Soviets refused to adopt the new policy and, as pointed out by the
_Izvestia_ of the Petrograd Soviet, March 24, 1919, continued to make
forced requisitions. There was, however, some limitation upon the
arrogant and brutal rule of the local Soviets; some restrictions were
imposed upon the dictatorship of the Committees of the Poor.

From an article in _Izvestia_, November 3, 1919, we get some further
information concerning the attitude of the peasants toward the Soviet
power, and its bearing upon the food question. Only a summary of the
article is possible here: “The food conditions are hard, not because
Russia, by being cut off from the principal bread-producing districts,
does not have sufficient quantities of grain, but principally owing
to the class war, _which has become permanent and continuous_. This
class war hinders the work of factories and shops” and, by lessening
the production of manufactured goods, “naturally renders the exchange
of goods between towns and country difficult, _because the peasants
consider money of no value, not being able to buy anything with
it_.” The peasants are not yet “sufficiently far-sighted to be quite
convinced of the stability of the Soviet power and the inevitability
of Socialism.” The peasants of the producing provinces “do not
willingly enough give the grain to the towns, and this greatly drags
on the class war, _which of course ruins them_.” The food conditions
in the towns promote “counter-revolution,” creating the hope that
the famine-stricken people in the towns will cease to support the
Soviet power. “Thus the peasants by concealing their bread ... render
conditions harder, not only for the workmen, but also for themselves.”
A statistical table shows that from August, 1918, to September, 1919,
in the twelve principal provinces, “99,980,000 poods of bread and
fodder grains were delivered to the state, which constitutes 38.1 per
cent. of the quantity which was to be received according to the state
allocation by provinces. The delivery of bread grain equaled 42.5 per
cent. Thus these provinces gave less than one-half of what they could
and should have given to the state.”

Such is the self-confessed record of Bolshevism in rural Russia. It is
a record of stupid, blundering, oppressive bureaucracy at its best, and
at its worst of unspeakable brutality. In dealing with the peasantry,
who make up more than 85 per cent. of the population of Russia,
Lenin and Trotsky and their followers have shown no greater wisdom
of statesmanship, no stronger love of justice, no greater humanity,
than the old bureaucracy of czarism. They have not elevated the life
of the peasants, but, on the contrary, have checked the healthy
development that was already in progress and that promised so well.
They have further brutalized the life of the peasants, deepened their
old distrust of government, fostered anarchy, and restored the most
primitive methods of living and working. All this they have done in the
name of Socialism and Progress!

VII

THE RED TERROR

It is frequently asserted in defense of the Bolsheviki that they
resorted to the methods of terrorism only after the bourgeoisie had
done so; that, in particular, the attempts to assassinate Lenin and
other prominent Bolshevist leaders induced terroristic reprisals. Thus
the Red Terror is made to appear as the response of the proletariat to
the White Terror of the bourgeoisie. This is not true, unless, indeed,
we are to take seriously the alleged “attack” on Lenin on January 16,
1918. A shot was fired, it was said, at Lenin while he was riding in
his motor-car. No one was arrested and no attempt was made to discover
the person who fired the shot. The general impression in Petrograd was
that it was a trick, designed to afford an excuse for the introduction
of the Terror. The assassination of Uritzky and the attempted
assassination of Lenin, in the summer of 1918, were undoubtedly
followed by an increase in the extent and savagery of the Red Terror,
but it is equally true that long before that time men and women who had
given their lives to the revolutionary struggle against czarism, and
who had approved of the terroristic acts against individual officials,
were staggered by the new mass terrorism which began soon after the
Bolsheviki seized the reins of power.

On January 16th, following the alleged “attack” upon Lenin above
referred to, Zinoviev, Bouch-Bruyevich, and other leaders of the
Bolsheviki raised a loud demand for the Terror. On the 18th, the
date set for the opening of the Constituent Assembly, the brutal
suppression of the demonstration was to be held, but on the 16th the
self-constituted Commissaries of the People adopted a resolution
to the effect that any attempt “to hold a demonstration in honor
of the Constituent Assembly” would be “put down most ruthlessly.”
This resolution was adopted, it is said, at the instigation of
Bouch-Bruyevich, who under czarism had been a noted defender of
religious liberty.

The upholders of the Constituent Assembly proceeded to hold their
demonstration. What happened is best told in the report of the event
made to the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau
by Inna Rakitnikov:

From eleven o’clock in the morning cortèges, composed
principally of working-men bearing red flags and placards with
inscriptions such as “Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!”
“Land and Liberty!” “Long Live the Constituent Assembly!” etc.,
set out from different parts of the city. The members of the
Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates had
agreed to meet at the Field of Mars, where a procession coming
from the Petrogradsky quarter was due to arrive. It was soon
learned that a part of the participants, coming from the Viborg
quarter, had been assailed at the Liteiny bridge by gun-fire
from the Red Guards and were obliged to turn back. But that
did not check the other parades. The peasant participants,
united with the workers from Petrogradsky quarter, came to the
Field of Mars; after having lowered their flags before the
tombs of the Revolution of February and sung a funeral hymn to
their memory, they installed themselves on Liteinaia Street.
New manifestants came to join them and the street was crowded
with people. At the corner of Fourstatskaia Street (one of the
streets leading to the Taurida Palace) they found themselves
all at once assailed by shots from the Red Guards.

The Red Guard fired _without warning_, something that never
before happened, even in the time of czarism. The police always
began by inviting the participators to disperse. Among the
first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the
Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates, the Siberian peasant, Logvinov.
An explosive bullet shot away half of his head (a photograph of
his body was taken; it was added to the documents which were
transferred to the Commission of Inquiry). Several workmen
and students and one militant of the Revolutionary Socialist
Party, Gorbatchevskaia, were killed at the same time. Other
processions of participants on their way to the Taurida Palace
were fired into at the same time. On all the streets leading
to the palace, groups of Red Guards had been established; they
received the order, “Not to spare the cartridges.” On that day
at Petrograd there were one hundred killed and wounded.[13]

[13] _How the Russian Peasants Fought for a Constituent Assembly._
A report to the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov,
vice-president of the executive committee of the Soviet of Delegates,
placing themselves upon the grounds of the defense of the Constituent
Assembly. With a letter-preface by the citizen, E. Roubanovitch, member
of the International Socialist Bureau. May 30, 1918. Note: This report
is printed in full as Appendix II to _Bolshevism_, by John Spargo, pp.
331-384.

What of the brutal murder of the two members of the Provisional
Government, F. F. Kokoshkin and A. I. Shingarev? Seized in the middle
of December, they were cast into dark, damp, and cold cells in the
Peter and Paul Fortress, in the notorious “Trubetskoy Bastion.” On the
evening of January 18th they were taken to the Marie Hospital. That
night Red Guards and sailors forced their way into the hospital and
brutally murdered them both. It is true that _Izvestia_ condemned the
crime, saying: “Apart from everything else it is bad from a political
point of view. This is a fearful blow aimed at the Revolution, at the
Soviet authorities.” It is true, also, that Dybenko, Naval Commissary,
published a remarkable order, saying: “The honor of the Revolutionary
Fleet must not bear the stain of an accusation of revolutionary
sailors having murdered their helpless enemies, rendered harmless by
imprisonment. _I call upon all who took part in the murder ... to
appear of their own accord before the Revolutionary Tribunal._”

In the absence of definite proof to the contrary it is perhaps best
to regard this outrage as due to the brutal savagery of individuals,
rather than as part of a deliberate officially sanctioned policy of
terrorism. Yet there is the fact that the sailors and Red Guards,
who were armed, had gone straight to the hospital from the office
of the Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and
Profiteering. That this body, which from the first enlisted the
services of many of the spies and secret agents of the old régime, had
some connection with the murders was generally believed.

At the end of December, 1917, and in January, 1918, there were
wholesale massacres in Sebastopol, Simferopol, Eupatoria, and other
places. The well-known radical Russian journalist, Dioneo-Shklovsky,
quotes Gorky’s paper, the _Novaya Zhizn_ (_New Life_), as follows:

The garrison of the Revolutionary Army at Sebastopol has
already begun its final struggle against the bourgeoisie.
Without much ado they decided simply to massacre all the
bourgeoisie. At first they massacred the inhabitants of the two
most bourgeois streets in Sebastopol, then the same operation
was extended to Simferopol, and then it was the turn of
Eupatoria.

In Sebastopol not less than five hundred citizens disappeared during
this St. Bartholomew massacre, according to this report, while at
Simferopol between two and three hundred officers were shot in the
prisons and in the streets. At Yalta many persons--between eighty and
one hundred--were thrown into the bay. At Eupatoria the sailors placed
the local “bourgeoisie in a barge and sank it.”

Of course Gorky’s paper was at that time very bitter in its criticisms
of the brutal methods of the Bolsheviki, and that fact must be taken
into account in considering its testimony. Gorky had been very friendly
to the Bolsheviki up to the _coup d’état_, but revolted against their
brutality in the early part of their régime. Subsequently, as is well
known, he became reconciled to the régime sufficiently to take office
under it. The foregoing accounts, as well as those in the following
paragraph, agree in all essential particulars with reports published
in the Constitutional-Democratic paper, _Nast Viek_. This paper, for
some inexplicable reason, notwithstanding its vigorous opposition
to the Bolsheviki, was permitted to appear, even when all other
non-Bolshevist papers were suppressed.

According to the _Novaya Zhizn_, No. 5, the Soviets in many Russian
towns made haste to follow the example of the revolutionary forces
at Sebastopol and Simferopol. In the town of Etaritsa the local Red
Guard wired to the authorities at the Smolny Institute, Petrograd,
for permission to have “a St. Bartholomew’s night” (_Yeremeievskaia
Notch_). In Tropetz, according to the same issue of Gorky’s paper, the
commandant presented this report to the Executive Committee of the
local Soviet: “The Red Army is quite ready for action. Am waiting for
orders to begin a St. Bartholomew’s massacre.” During the latter part
of February and the first week of March, 1918, there were wholesale
massacres of officers and other bourgeoisie in Kiev, Rostov-on-Don and
Novotcherkassk, among other places. The local Socialists-Revolutionists
paper, _Izvestia_, of Novotcherkassk, in its issue of March 6, 1918,
gave an account of the killing of a number of officers.

In the beginning of March, 1918, mass executions were held in
Rostov-on-Don. Many children were executed by way of reprisal. The
_Russkiya Viedomosti_ (_Russian News_), in its issue of March 23, 1918,
reported that the president of the Municipal Council of Rostov, B. C.
Vasiliev, a prominent member of the Social Democratic Party; the mayor
of the city; the former chairman of the Rostov-Nakhichevan Council of
Working-men’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, P. Melnikov; and M. Smirnov, who
was chairman of this Soviet at the time--had handed in a petition to
the Bolshevist War-Revolutionary Council, asking that they themselves
be shot “instead of the innocent children who are executed without law
and justice.”

A group of mothers submitted to the same Bolshevist tribunal the
following heartrending petition:

If, according to you, there is need of sacrifices in blood and
life in order to establish a socialistic state and to create
new ways of life, take our lives, kill us, grown mothers and
fathers, but let our children live. They have not yet had a
chance to live; they are only growing and developing. Do not
destroy young lives. Take our lives and our blood as ransom.

Our voices are calling to you, laborers. You have not stained
the banner of the Revolution even with the blood of traitors,
such as Shceglovitov and Protopopov. Why do you now witness
indifferently the bloodshed of our children? Raise your voices
in protest. Children do not understand about party strife.
Their adherence to one or another party is directed by their
eagerness for new impressions, novelty, and the suggestions of
elders.

We, mothers, have served the country by giving our sons,
husbands, and brothers. Pray, take our last possessions, our
lives, but spare our children. Call us one after the other for
execution, when our children are to be shot! Every one of us
would gladly die in order to save the life of her children or
that of other children.

Citizens, members of the War-Revolutionary Council, listen to
the cries of the mothers. We cannot keep silent!

A. Lockerman is a Socialist whose work against czarism brought prison
and exile. He was engaged in Socialist work in Rostov-on-Don when the
Bolsheviki seized the city in 1918, and during the seventy days they
remained its masters. He says:

The callousness with which the Red soldiers carried out
executions was amazing. Without wasting words, without
questions, even without any irritation, the Red Army men took
those who were brought to them from the street, stripped them
naked, put them to the wall and shot them. Then the bodies were
thrown out on the embankment and stable manure thrown over the
pools of blood.[14]

[14] A. Lockerman; _Les Bolsheviks à l’œuvre_, preface par V. Zenzinov,
Paris, 1920.

Such barbarity and terrorism went on wherever the Bolsheviki held
control, long before the introduction of a system of organized
terror directed by the central Soviet Government. Not only did the
Bolshevist leaders make no attempt to check the brutal savagery, the
murders, lynchings, floggings, and other outrages, but they loudly
complained that the local revolutionary authorities were not severe
enough. Zinoviev bewailed the too great leniency displayed toward
the “counter-revolutionaries and bourgeoisie.” Even Lenin, popularly
believed to be less inclined to severity than any of his colleagues,
complained, in April, 1918, that “our rule is too mild, quite
frequently resembling jam rather than iron.” Trotsky with greater
savagery said:

You are perturbed by the mild terror we are applying against
our class enemies, but know that a month hence this terror
will take a more terrible form on the model of the terror of
the great revolutionaries of France. Not a fortress, but the
guillotine, will be for our enemies!

Numerous reports similar to the foregoing could be cited to disprove
the claim of the apologists of the Bolsheviki that the Red Terror was
introduced in consequence of the assassination of Uritzky and the
attempt to assassinate Lenin. The truth is that the tyrannicide, the
so-called White Terror, was the result of the Red Terror, not its
cause. It is true, of course, that the terrorism was not all on the one
side. There were many uprisings of the people, both city workers and
peasants, against the Bolshevist usurpers. Defenders of the Bolsheviki
cite these uprisings and the brutal savagery with which the Soviet
officials were attacked to justify the terroristic policy of the
Bolsheviki. The introduction of such a defense surely knocks the bottom
out of the claim that the Bolsheviki really represented the great mass
of the working-people, and that only the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie,
and the rich peasants were opposed to them. The uprisings were too
numerous, too wide-spread, and too formidable to admit of such an
interpretation.

M. C. Eroshkin, who was chairman of the Perm Committee of the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionists, and represented the Minister of Agriculture
in the Perm district under the Provisional Government, during his visit
to the United States in 1919 told the present writer some harrowing
stories of uprisings against the Soviets which took on a character
of bestial brutality. One of these stories was of an uprising in the
Polevsky Works, in Ekaterinburg County, where a mob of peasants, armed
with axes, scythes, and sticks, fell upon the members of the Soviet
like so many wild animals, tearing fifty of them literally into pieces!

That the government of Russia under the Bolsheviki was to be
tyrannical and despotic in the extreme was made evident from the very
beginning. By the decree of November 24, 1917, all existing courts of
justice were abolished and in their places set up a system of local
courts based upon the elective principle. The first judges were to
be elected by the Soviets, but henceforth “on the basis of direct
democratic vote.” It was provided that the judges were to be “guided
in their rulings and verdicts by the laws of the governments which
had been overthrown only in so far as those laws are not annulled by
the Revolution, and do not contradict the revolutionary conscience
and the revolutionary conception of right.” An interpretative note
was appended to this clause explaining that all laws which were in
contradiction to the decrees of the Central Executive Committee of the
Soviet Government, or the minimum programs of the Social Democratic or
Socialists-Revolutionists parties, must be regarded as canceled.

This new “democratic judicial system” was widely hailed as an earnest
of the democracy of the new régime and as a constructive experiment of
the highest importance. That the decree seemed to manifest a democratic
intention is not to be gainsaid: the question of its sincerity cannot
be so easily determined. Of course, there is much in the decree and
in the scheme outlined that is extremely crude, while the explanatory
note referred to practically had the effect of enacting the platforms
of political parties, which had never been formulated in the precise
terms of laws, being rather general propositions concerning the exact
meaning, of which there was much uncertainty. Crude and clumsy though
the scheme might be, however, it had the merit of appearing to be
democratic. A careful reading of the decree reveals the fact that
several most important classes of offenses were exempted from the
jurisdiction of these courts, among them all “political offenses.”
Special revolutionary tribunals were to be charged with “the defense of
the Revolution”:

For the struggle against the counter-revolutionary forces
by means of measures for the defense of the Revolution and
its accomplishments, and also for the trial of proceedings
against profiteering, speculation, sabotage, and other
misdeeds of merchants, manufacturers, officials, and other
persons, Workmen’s and Peasants’ Revolutionary Tribunals
are established, consisting of a chairman and six members,
serving in turn, elected by the provincial or city Soviets of
Workmen’s, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies.

Perhaps only those who are familiar with the methods of czarism can
appreciate fully the significance of thus associating political
offenses, such as counter-revolutionary agitation, with such offenses
as illegal speculation and profiteering. Proceedings against profiteers
and speculators could be relied upon to bring sufficient popularity to
these tribunals to enable them to punish political offenders severely,
and with a greater degree of impunity than would otherwise be possible.
On December 19, 1917, I. Z. Steinberg, People’s Commissar of Justice,
issued a decree called “Instructions to the Revolutionary Tribunal,”
which caused Shcheglovitov, the most reactionary Minister of Justice
the Czar ever had, to cry out: “The Cadets repeatedly charged me in the
Duma with turning the tribunal into a weapon of political struggle.
How far the Bolsheviki have left me behind!” The following paragraphs
from this remarkable document show how admirably the institution of the
Revolutionary Tribunal was designed for political oppression:

1. The Revolutionary Tribunal has jurisdiction in cases of
persons (_a_) who organize uprisings against the authority of
the Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government, actively oppose the
latter or do not obey it, or call upon other persons to oppose
or disobey it; (_b_) who utilize their positions in the state
or public service to disturb or hamper the regular progress
of work in the institution or enterprise in which they are or
have been serving (sabotage, concealing or destroying documents
or property, etc.); (_c_) who stop or reduce production of
articles of general use without actual necessity for so doing;
(_d_) who violate the decrees, orders, binding ordinances,
and other published acts of the organs of the Workmen’s and
Peasants’ Government, if such acts stipulate a trial by the
Revolutionary Tribunal for their violation; (_e_) who, taking
advantage of their social or administrative position, misuse
the authority given them by the revolutionary people. Crimes
against the people committed by means of the press are under
the jurisdiction of a specially instituted Revolutionary
Tribunal.

2. The Revolutionary Tribunal for offenses indicated in Article
I imposes upon the guilty the following penalties: (1) fine;
(2) deprivation of freedom; (3) exile from the capitals, from
particular localities, or from the territory of the Russian
Republic; (4) public censure; (5) declaring the offender a
public enemy; (6) deprivation of all or some political rights;
(7) sequestration or confiscation, partial or general, of
property; (8) sentence to compulsory public work.

The Revolutionary Tribunal fixes the penalty, being guided
by the circumstances of the case and the dictates of the
revolutionary conscience.

* * * * *

II. The verdicts of the Revolutionary Tribunal are final. In
case of violation of the form of procedure established by
these instructions, or the discovery of indications of obvious
injustice in the verdict, the People’s Commissar of Justice
has the right to address to the Central Executive Committee of
the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies a
request to order a second and last trial of the case.

Refusal to obey the Soviet Government, active opposition to it, and
calling upon other persons “to oppose or disobey it” are thus made
punishable offenses. In view of the uproar of protest raised in this
country against the deportation of alien agitators and conspirators,
especially by the defenders and upholders of the Bolsheviki who have
assured us of the beneficent liberality of the Soviet Utopia, it
may be well to direct particular attention to the fact that these
“instructions” make special and precise provisions for the deportation
of political undesirables. It is set forth that the Revolutionary
Tribunal may inflict, among other penalties, “exile from the capitals,
from particular localities, _or from the territory of the Russian
Republic_,” that is, deportation. These penalties, moreover, apply to
Russian citizens, not, as in the case of our deportations, to aliens.
The various forms of exile thus provided for were common penalties
under the old régime.[15]

[15] To avoid misunderstanding (though I cannot hope to avert
misrepresentation) let me say that this paragraph is not intended
to be a defense or a justification of the policy of deporting alien
agitators. While admitting the right of our government to deport
undesirable aliens, as a corollary to the undoubted right to deny
their admission in the first place, I do not believe in deportation
as a method of dealing with revolutionary propaganda. On the other
hand, I deny the right of the Bolsheviki or their supporters to oppose
as reactionary and illiberal a method of dealing with political
undesirables which is in full force in Bolshevist Russia, which they
acclaim so loudly.

It is interesting to observe, further, that there is no right of
appeal from the verdicts of the Revolutionary Tribunal, except that
“the People’s Commissar of Justice has the right to address to the
Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and
Peasants’ Deputies a _request_ to order a second and last trial” of
any case in which he is sufficiently interested to do so. Unless this
official can be convinced that there has been some “violation of the
form of procedure” or that there is “obvious injustice in the verdict,”
and unless he can be induced to make such a “request” to the central
Soviet authority, the verdict of the Revolutionary Tribunal is final
and absolute. What a travesty upon justice and upon democracy! What an
admirable instrument for tyrants to rely upon!

Even this terrible weapon of despotism and oppression did not satisfy
the Bolsheviki, however. For one thing, the decree constituting the
Revolutionary Tribunal provided that its session must be held in the
open; for another, its members must be elected. Consequently, a new
type of tribunal was added to the system, the Extraordinary Commission
for Combating Counter-Revolution--the infamous _Chresvychaika_. Not
since the Inquisitions of the Middle Ages has any civilized nation
maintained tribunals clothed with anything like the arbitrary and
unlimited authority possessed by the central and local Extraordinary
Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution. They have written upon
the pages of Russia’s history a record of tyranny and oppression which
makes the worst record of czarism seem gentle and beneficent.

It is not without sinister significance that in all the collections of
documents which the Bolsheviki and their sympathizers have published
to illustrate the workings of the Soviet system, in this country and
in Europe, there is not one explaining the organization, functions,
methods, and personnel of it’s most characteristic institution--more
characteristic even than the Soviet. Neither in the several collections
published by _The Nation_, the American Association for International
Conciliation, the Russian Soviet Government Bureau, nor in the books
of writers like John Reed, Louise Bryant, William C. Bullitt, Raymond
Robins, William T. Goode, Arthur Ransome, Isaac Don Levine, Colonel
Malone, M.P., Lincoln Eyre, Etienne Antonelli, nor any other volume
of the kind, can such information be found. This silence is profoundly
eloquent.

This much we know about the _Chresvychaikas_: The Soviet Government
created the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating
Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and Profiteering, and established
it at the headquarters of the former Prefecture of Petrograd, 2,
Gorokhovaia Street. Its full personnel has never been made known, but
it is well known that many of the spies and confidential agents of
the former secret police service entered its employ. _Until February,
1919, it possessed absolutely unlimited powers of arrest, except
for the immunity enjoyed by members of the government; its hearings
were held in secret; it was not obliged to report even the names of
persons sentenced by it; mass arrests and mass sentences were common
under its direction; it was not confined to dealing with definite
crimes, violations of definite laws, but could punish at will, in any
manner it deemed fit, any conduct which it pleased to declare to be
“counter-revolutionary.”_

Those apologists who say that the Bolsheviki resorted to terrorism
only after the assassination of Uritzky, and those others who say
that terrorism was the answer to the intervention of the Allies,
are best answered by the citation of official documentary evidence
furnished by the Bolsheviki themselves. In the face of such evidence
argument is puerile and vain. In February, 1918, months before either
the assassination of Uritzky or the intervention of the Allies took
place, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission issued the following
proclamation, which was published in the _Krasnaya Gazeta_, official
organ of the Petrograd Soviet, on February 23, 1918:

The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat
Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and Speculation, of the Council
of People’s Commissaries, brings to the notice of all citizens
that up to the present time it has been lenient in the struggle
against the enemies of the people.

But at the present moment, when the counter-revolution is
becoming more impudent every day, inspired by the treacherous
attacks of German counter-revolutionists; when the bourgeoisie
of the whole world is trying to suppress the advance-guard of
the revolutionary International, the Russian proletariat, the
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, acting in conformity with
the ordinances of the Council of People’s Commissaries, sees
_no other way to combat counter-revolutionists_, speculators,
marauders, hooligans, obstructionists, and other parasites,
_except by pitiless destruction at the place of crime_.

Therefore the Commission announces that all enemy agents, _and
counter-revolutionary agitators, speculators, organizers of
uprisings or participants in preparations for uprisings to
overthrow the Soviet authority, all fugitives to the Don to
join the counter-revolutionary armies of Kaledin and Kornilov
and the Polish counter-revolutionary Legions_, sellers or
purchasers of arms to be sent to the Finnish White Guard, the
troops of Kaledin, Kornilov, and Dovbor Musnitsky, or to arm
the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie of Petrograd, _will be
mercilessly shot by detachments of the Commission at the place
of the crime_.

PETROGRAD, _February 22, 1918_.

ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION.

In connection with this ferocious document and its announcement that
“counter-revolutionists” would be subject to “pitiless destruction,”
that “counter-revolutionary agitators” would be “mercilessly shot,” it
is important to remember that during the summer of 1917, when Kerensky
was struggling against “German counter-revolutionists” and plots to
overthrow the Revolution, the Bolsheviki had demanded the abolition
of the death penalty. Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, and others
denounced Kerensky as a “hangman” and “murderer.” Where is the moral
integrity of these men? Like scorpion stings are the bitter words
of the protest of L. Martov, leader of the radical left wing of the
Menshevist Social Democrats:

In 1910 the International Socialist Congress at Copenhagen
passed a resolution in favor of starting a campaign in all
countries for the abolition of the death penalty.

All the present leaders of the Bolshevist Party--Lenin,
Zinoviev, Trotsky, Kamenev, Radek, Rakovsky,
Lunarcharsky--voted for this resolution. I saw them all there
raising their hands in favor of the resolution declaring war on
capital punishment.

Then I saw them in Petrograd in July, 1917, protesting against
punishing by death even those who had turned traitors to their
country during the war.

I see them now condemning to death and executing people,
bourgeoisie and workmen, peasants and officers alike. I see
them now demanding from their subordinates that they should
not count the victims, that they should put to death as many
opponents of the Bolshevist régime as possible.

And I say to these Bolshevist “judges”: You are malignant
liars and perjurers! You have deceived the workmen’s
International by signing its demand for the universal abolition
of the death penalty and by its restoration when you came to
power.

No idle threat was the proclamation of February: the performance
was fully as brutal as the text. Hundreds of people were shot. The
death penalty had been “abolished,” and on the strength of that fact
the Bolsheviki had been lauded to the skies for their humanity by
myopic and perverse admirers in this country and elsewhere outside of
Russia. But the shooting of people by the armed detachments of the
Extraordinary Commission went on. No court ever examined the cases; no
competent jurists heard or reviewed the evidence, or even examined the
charges. A simple entry, such as “Ivan Kouzmitch--Robbery--Shot,” might
cover the murder of a devoted Socialist whose only crime was a simple
speech to his fellow-workmen in favor of the immediate convocation of
the Constituent Assembly, or calling upon them to unite against the
Bolsheviki. And where counter-revolutionary agitation was given as the
crime for which men were shot there was nothing to show, in many cases,
whether the victim had taken up arms against the Soviet power or merely
expressed opinions unfavorable to the régime.

Originally under the direction of Uritzky, who met a well-deserved
fate at the hands of an assassin[16] in July, 1918, the All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission in turn set up Provincial and District
Extraordinary Commissions, all of which enjoyed the same practically
unlimited powers. Before February, 1919, these bodies were not even
limited in the exercise of the right to inflict the death penalty,
except for the immunity enjoyed by members of the government. Any
Extraordinary Commission could arrest, arraign, condemn, and execute
any person in secret, the only requirement being that _afterward_, if
called upon to do so, it must report the case to the local Soviet! A
well-known Bolshevist writer, Alminsky, wrote in _Pravda_, October 8,
1918:

[16] Uritzky is thus described by Maurice Verstraete:

“He is a refined sadist, who does his grim work for the love of it....
Uritzky is a hunchback and seems to be revenging himself on all
mankind for his deformity. His heart is full of hatred, his nerves
are shattered, and his mind depraved. He is the personification of a
civilized brute--that is to say, the most cruel of all. Yesterday he
was laughing at his own joke. He had ordered twenty men to be executed.
Among the condemned was a lover of the girl who was waiting to be
examined. Uritzky himself told her of the death of her lover.... The
only emotion of which Uritzky is capable is fear. The only person
Uritzky obeys is the Swiss ambassador, as he hopes, in return, that the
latter will enable him to procure a passport to Switzerland, in case
he is forced to escape when the Bolsheviks are overthrown.... Trotsky
and Zinoviev are in many ways like Uritzky. They are also cruel,
hysterical, and ready to overwhelm the world with blood.”--VERSTRAETE,
_Mes Cahiers Russes_, p. 350.

The absence of the necessary restraint makes one feel appalled
at the “instruction” issued by the All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission to “All Provincial Extraordinary Commissions,” which
says: “The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission is perfectly
independent in its work, carrying out house-searches, arrests,
executions, of which it _afterward_ reports to the Council
of the People’s Commissaries and to the Central Executive
Council.” Further, the Provincial and District Extraordinary
Commissions “are independent in their activities, and when
called upon by the local Executive Council present a report
of their work.” In so far as house-searches and arrests are
concerned, a report made _afterward_ may result in putting
right irregularities committed owing to lack of restraint.
The same cannot be said of executions.... It can also be seen
from the “instruction” that personal safety is to a certain
extent guaranteed only to members of the government, of the
Central Council, and of the local Executive Committees. With
the exception of these few persons all members of the local
committees of the (Bolshevik) Party, of the Control Committees,
and of the Executive Committee of the party may be shot at any
time by the decision of any Extraordinary Commission of a small
district town if they happen to be on its territory, and a
report of that made _afterward_.

After the assassination of Uritzky, and the attempted assassination
of Lenin, there was instituted a mad orgy of murderous terror without
parallel. It was a veritable saturnalia of brutal repression. Against
the vain protestation of the defenders of the Bolsheviki that the Red
Terror has been grossly exaggerated, it is quite sufficient to set
down the exultations and admissions of the Bolsheviki themselves,
the records made and published in their own official reports and
newspapers. The evidence which is given in the next few pages is only
a small part of the immense volume of such evidence that is available,
every word of it taken from Bolshevist sources.

Under czarism revolutionary terrorism directed against government
officials was almost invariably followed by increased repression;
terror made answer to terror. We shall search the records of czarism
in vain, however, for evidence of such brutal and blood-lusting rage
as the Bolsheviki manifested when their terror was answered by terror.
When a young Jew named Kannegiesser assassinated Uritzky the _Krasnaya
Gazeta_ declared:

The whole bourgeoisie must answer for this act of terror....
Thousands of our enemies must pay for Uritzky’s death.... We
must teach the bourgeoisie a bloody lesson.... Death to the
bourgeoisie!

This same Bolshevist organ, after the attempt to assassinate Lenin,
said:

We will turn our hearts into steel, which we will temper in
the fire of suffering and the blood of fighters for freedom.
We will make our hearts cruel, hard, and immovable, so that
no mercy will enter them, and so that they will not quiver
at the sight of a sea of enemy blood. We will let loose the
flood-gates of that sea. Without mercy, without sparing, we
will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be
thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood. For
the blood of Lenin and Uritzky, Zinoviev, and Volodarsky, let
there be floods of the blood of the bourgeoisie--more blood, as
much as possible.

In the same spirit the _Izvestia_ declared, “The proletariat will
reply to the attempt on Lenin in a manner that will make the whole
bourgeoisie shudder with horror.” Peters, successor to Uritzky as head
of the Extraordinary Commission, said, in an official proclamation,
“This crime will be answered by a mass terror.” On September 2d,
Petrovsky, Commissar for the Interior, issued this call to mass terror:

Murder of Volodarsky and Uritzky, attempt on Lenin, and
shooting of masses of our comrades in Finland, Ukrainia, the
Don and Czechoslovakia, continual discovery of conspiracies in
our rear, open acknowledgment of Right Social Revolutionary
Party and other counter-revolutionary rascals of their part
in these conspiracies, together with the insignificant extent
of serious repressions and mass shooting of White Guards and
bourgeoisie on the part of the Soviets, all these things show
that notwithstanding frequent pronouncements urging mass terror
against the Socialists-Revolutionaries, White Guards, and
bourgeoisie no real terror exists.

Such a situation should decidedly be stopped. End should be put
to weakness and softness. All Right Socialists-Revolutionaries
known to local Soviets should be arrested immediately. Numerous
hostages should be taken from the bourgeoisie and officer
classes. At the slightest attempt to resist or the slightest
movement among the White Guards, mass shooting should be
applied at once. Initiative in this matter rests especially
with the local executive committees.

Through the militia and extraordinary commissions, all branches
of government must take measures to seek out and arrest persons
hiding under false names and shoot without fail anybody
connected with the work of the White Guards.

All above measures should be put immediately into execution.

Indecisive action on the part of local Soviets must be
immediately reported to People’s Commissary for Home Affairs.

The rear of our armies must be finally guaranteed and
completely cleared of all kinds of White-Guardists, and
all despicable conspirators against the authority of the
working-class and of the poorest peasantry. Not the slightest
hesitation or the slightest indecisiveness in applying mass
terror.

Acknowledge the receipt of this telegram.

Transmit to district Soviets.

[Signed] PETROVSKY.[17]

[17] The text is taken from the _Weekly of the All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission_ (No. 1), Moscow, September 21, 1918. The
translation used is that published by the U. S. Department of State. It
has been verified.

On September 3, 1918, the _Izvestia_ published this news item:

In connection with the murder of Uritzky five hundred persons
have been shot by order of the Petrograd Extraordinary
Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution. The names of the
persons shot, and those of candidates for future shooting, in
case of a new attempt on the lives of the Soviet leaders, will
be published later.[18]

[18] Desiring to confine the evidence here strictly to Bolshevist
sources, I have passed over much testimony by well-known
Socialists-Revolutionists, Social Democrats, and others. Because it
has not been possible to have the item referring to the retaliatory
massacre in Petrograd satisfactorily verified, I introduce here, by way
of corroboration, a statement by the Socialists-Revolutionists leader,
Eugene Trupp, published in the organ of the Socialists-Revolutionists,
_Zemlia i Volia_, October 3, 1918:

“After the murder of Uritzky in Petrograd 1,500 people were
arrested; 512, including 10 Socialists-Revolutionists, were shot.
At the same time 800 people were arrested in Moscow. It is unknown,
however, how many of these were shot. In Nizhni-Novgorod, 41 were
shot; in Jaroslavl, 13; in Astrakhan, 12 Socialists-Revolutionists;
in Sarapool, a member of the Central Committee of the party of
Socialists-Revolutionists, I. I. Teterin; in Penza, about 40 officers.”

See also the corroboration of this incident quoted from the _Weekly
Journal of the Extraordinary Commission_, on p. 171.

Two days later, September 5, 1918, a single column of _Izvestia_
contained the following paragraphs, headed “Latest News”:

_Arrest of Right Socialists-Revolutionaries_

At the present moment the ward extraordinary commissioners are
making mass arrests of Right Socialists-Revolutionaries, since
it has become clear that this party is responsible for the
recent acts of terrorism (attempt on life of Comrade Lenin and
the murder of Uritzky), which were carried out according to a
definitely elaborated program.

_Arrest of a Priest_

For an anti-Soviet sermon preached from the church pulpit,
the Priest Molot has been arrested and turned over to the
counter-revolutionary section of the All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission.

_Struggle Against Counter-Revolutionaries_

We have received the following telegram from the president
of the Front Extraordinary Commission, Comrade Latsis: “The
Extraordinary Commission of the Front had shot in the district
of Ardatov, for anti-Soviet agitation, 4 peasants, and sent to
a concentration camp 32 officers.

“At Arzamas were shot three champions of the Tsarist régime,
and one peasant-exploiter, and 14 officers were sent to the
concentration camp for anti-Soviet agitation.”

_House Committee Fined_

For failure to execute the orders of the dwelling section of
the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, the house committee
at 42, Pokrovka, has been fined 20,000 rubles.

This fine is a punishment for failure to remove from the
house register the name of the well-known Cadet Astrov, who
disappeared three months ago.

All the movable property of Astrov has been confiscated.

_The Arrest of Speculators_

On September 3d members of the Section to Combat Speculation
of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission arrested Citizen
Pitkevich, who was trying to buy 125 food-cards at 20 rubles
each. A search was made in the apartment of Pitkevich, which
revealed a store of such cards bearing official stamps.

This section also arrested a certain Bosh, who was speculating
in cocaine brought from Pskov.

On September 5, 1918, the Council of the People’s Commissaries ordered
that the names of persons shot by order of the Extraordinary Commission
should be published, with full particulars of their cases, a decision
which was flouted by the Extraordinary Commission, as we shall see. The
resolution of the Council of People’s Commissaries was published in the
_Severnaya Communa_, evening edition, November 9, 1918, and reads as
follows:

The Council of the People’s Commissaries, having considered the
report of the chairman of the Extraordinary Commission, finds
that under the existing conditions it is most necessary to
secure the safety of the rear by means of terror. All persons
belonging to the White Guard organizations or involved in
conspiracies and rebellion are to be shot. Their names and the
particulars of their cases are to be published.

On September 10, 1918, the _Severnaya Communa_ published in its news
columns the two following despatches:

JAROSLAVL, _September 9th_.--In the whole of the Jaroslavl
Government a strict registration of the bourgeoisie and its
partizans has been organized. Manifestly anti-Soviet elements
are being shot; suspected persons are being interned in
concentration camps; non-working sections of the population are
being subjected to compulsory labor.

TYER, _September 9th_.--The Extraordinary Commission has
arrested and sent to concentration camps over 130 hostages from
among the bourgeoisie. The prisoners include members of the
Cadet Party, Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right, former
officers, well-known members of the propertied class, and
policemen.

Two days later, September 12th, the same journal contained the
following:

ATKARSK, _September, 11th_.--Yesterday martial law was
proclaimed in the town. Eight counter-revolutionaries were shot.

On September 18, 1918, the _Severnaya Communa_ published the following
evidences of the wide-spread character of the terrorism which the
Bolsheviki were practising:

In Sebesh a priest named Kikevitch was shot for
counter-revolutionary propaganda and for _saying masses for the
late Nicholas Romanov_.

In Astrakhan the Extraordinary Commission has shot _ten
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right involved in a plot
against the Soviet power_. In Karamyshev a priest named
Lubinoff and a deacon named Kvintil have been shot for
_revolutionary agitation against the decree separating
the Church from the State_ and for an appeal to overthrow
the Soviet Government. In Perm, _in retaliation for the
assassination of Uritzky and for the attempt on Lenin, fifty
hostages from among the bourgeois classes and the White Guards
were shot_.

The shooting of innocent hostages is a peculiarly brutal form of
terrorism. When it was practised by the Germans during the war the
world reverberated with denunciation. That the Bolsheviki ever were
guilty of this crime, so much more odious than anything which can be
charged against czarism, has been many times denied, but the foregoing
statement from one of their most influential official journals is a
complete refutation of all such denials. Perm is more than a thousand
miles from Petrograd, where the assassination of Uritzky occurred, and
no attempt was ever made to show that the fifty hostages who were shot,
or any of them, were guilty of any complicity in the assassination. It
was a brutal, malignant retaliation upon innocent people for a crime
of which they knew nothing. The famous “Decree No. 903,” signed by
Trotsky, which called for the taking of hostages as a means of checking
desertions from the Red Army, was published in _Izvestia_, September
18, 1918:

Decree No. 903: Seeing the increasing number of deserters,
especially among the commanders, orders are issued to arrest as
hostages all the members of the family one can lay hands on:
father, mother, brother, sister, wife, and children.

The evening edition of _Severnaya Communa_, September 18, 1918,
reported a meeting of the Soviet of the first district of Petrograd,
stating that the following resolution had been passed:

The meeting welcomes the fact that mass terror is being used
against the White Guards and higher bourgeois classes, and
declares that every attempt on the life of any of our leaders
will be answered by the proletariat by the shooting down
not only of hundreds, as the case is now, but of thousands
of White Guards, bankers, manufacturers, Cadets, and
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right.

On the following day, September 19th, the same journal quoted Zinoviev
as saying:

To overcome our enemies we must have our own Socialist
Militarism. We must win over to our side 90 millions out of
the 100 millions of population of Russia under the Soviets.
_As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them; they must be
annihilated._

Reference has already been made to the fact that the Council of the
People’s Commissaries ordered that the Extraordinary Commission publish
the names of all persons sentenced to be shot, with particulars of
their cases, and the further fact that the instruction was ignored. It
is well known that great friction developed between the Extraordinary
Commissions and the Soviet power. In many places the Extraordinary
Commissions not only defied the local Soviets, _but actually suppressed
them_. Naturally, there was friction between the Soviet power and
its creature. There were loud protests on the part of influential
Bolsheviki, who demanded that the _Chresvychaikas_ be curbed and
restrained and that the power to inflict the death penalty be taken
from them. That is why the resolution of September 5th, already quoted,
was passed. Nevertheless, in practice secrecy was very generally
observed. Trials took place in secret and there was no publication,
in many instances, of results. Reporting a meeting of the Executive
Committee of the Moscow Soviet, which took place on October 16, 1918,
_Izvestia_, the official Bolshevist organ, contained the following in
its issue of the next day:

The report of the work of the All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission was read at a secret session of the Executive
Committee. _But the report and the discussion of it were held
behind closed doors and will not be published._ After a debate
the doors of the Session Hall were thrown open.

From an article in the _Severnaya Communa_, October 17, 1918, we
learn that the Extraordinary Commission “has registered 2,559
counter-revolutionary affairs and 5,000 arrests have been made”; that
“at Kronstadt there have been 1,130 hostages. Only 183 people are left;
500 have been shot.”

Under the heading, “The Conference of the Extraordinary Commission,”
_Izvestia_ of October 19, 1918, printed the following paragraph:

PETROGRAD, _October 17th_.--At to-day’s meeting of the
Conference of the Extraordinary Investigating Commission,
Comrades Moros and Baky read reports giving an account of the
activities of the Extraordinary Commission in Petrograd and
Moscow. Comrade Baky threw light on the work of the district
commission of Petrograd after the departure of the All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission for Moscow. The total number of people
arrested by the Extraordinary Commission amounted to 6,220.
_Eight hundred people were shot._

On November 5, 1918, _Izvestia_ said:

A riot occurred in the Kirsanoff district. The rioters
shouted, “Down with the Soviets.” They dissolved the Soviet
and Committee of the Village Poor. The riot was suppressed by
a detachment of Soviet troops. Six ringleaders were shot. The
case is under examination.

The _Weekly Journal of the Extraordinary Commissions to Combat
Counter-Revolution_ is, as the name implies, the official organ in
which the proclamations and reports of these Extraordinary Commissions
are published. It is popularly nicknamed “The Hangmen’s Journal.” The
issue of October 6, 1918 (No. 3), contains the following:

We decided to make it a real, not a paper terror. In many
cities there took place, accordingly, _mass shootings of
hostages_, and it is well that they did. In such business
half-measures are worse than none.

Another issue (No. 5), dated October 20, 1918, says:

Upon the decision of the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission,
500 hostages were shot.

These are typical extracts: it would be possible to quote from this
journal whole pages quite similar to them.

How closely the Extraordinary Commissions copied the methods of the
Czar’s secret police system can be judged from a paragraph that
appeared in the _Severnaya Communa_, October 17, 1918:

The Extraordinary Commission has organized the placing of
police agents in every part of Petrograd. The Commission has
issued a proclamation to the workmen exhorting them to inform
the police of all they know. The bandits, both in word and
action, must be forced to recognize that the revolutionary
proletariat is watching them strictly.

Here, then, is a formidable array of evidence from Bolshevist sources
of the very highest authority. It is only a part of the whole volume
of such evidence that is available; nevertheless, it is sufficient,
overwhelming, and conclusive. If we were to draw upon the official
documentary testimony of the Socialist parties and groups opposed to
the Bolsheviki, hundreds of pages of records of _Schrecklichkeit_,
even more brutal than anything here quoted, could be easily compiled.
Much of this testimony is as reliable and entitled to as much weight
as any of the foregoing. Take, for example, the statement of the
Foreign Representatives of the Russian Social Democratic Party upon
the shooting of six young students arrested in Petrograd: In the New
York _World_, March 22, 1920, Mr. Lincoln Eyre quotes “Red Executioner
Peters” as saying: “We have never yet passed the sentence of death
on a foreigner, although some of them richly deserved it. The few
foreigners who have lost their lives in the Revolution have been killed
in the course of a fight or in some such manner.” Shall we not set
against that statement the signed testimony of responsible and honored
spokesmen of the Russian Social Democratic Party?

Three brothers, named Genzelli, French citizens, were arrested and shot
without the formality of a trial. They had been officers in the Czar’s
army, and, with three young fellow-officers, Russians, were discovered
at a private gathering, wearing the shoulder-straps indicative of
their former military rank. This was their offense. According to a
statement issued by the Foreign Representatives of the Russian Social
Democratic Party, Lenin was asked at Smolny, “What is to be done with
the students?” and replied, “Do with them what you like.” The whole six
were shot, but it has never been possible to ascertain who issued the
order for the execution.

Another example: The famous Schastny case throws a strong light upon
one very important phase of the Bolshevist terror. Shall we decline to
give credence to Socialists of honorable distinction, simply because
they are opposed to Bolshevism? Here are two well-known Socialist
writers, one French and the other Russian, long and honorably
identified with the international Socialist movement. Charles Dumas,
the French Socialist, from whose book[19] quotation has already been
made, gives an account of the Schastny case which vividly illustrates
the brutality of the Bolsheviki:

[19] _La Vérité sur les Bolsheviki_, par Charles Dumas, Paris, 1919.

The Schastny case is the most detestable episode in Bolshevist
history. Its most repulsive feature is the parody of legality
which the Bolsheviki attempt to attach to a case of wanton
murder. Admiral Schastny was the commander of the Baltic
Fleet and was put in command by the Bolsheviki themselves.
Thanks to his efforts, the Russian war-ships were brought
out of Helsingfors harbor in time to escape capture by the
Germans on the eve of their invasion of Finland. In general,
it was he who contributed largely to the saving of whatever
there was left of the Russian fleet. His political views were
so radical that even the Bolsheviki tolerated him in their
service. Notwithstanding all this, he was accused of complicity
in a counter-revolutionary plot and haled before a tribunal.
In vain did the judge search for a shred of proof of his
guilt. Only one witness appeared against him--Trotsky--who
delivered an impassioned harangue full of venom and malice.
Admiral Schastny implored the court to allow witnesses for the
defense to testify, but the judges decreed that his request
was sheer treason. Thereupon the witnesses who were prevented
from appearing in court forwarded their testimony in writing,
but the court decided not to read their communication. After
a simulated consultation, Schastny was condemned to die--a
verdict which later stirred even Krylenko, one of his
accusers, to say: “That was not a death sentence--that was a
summary shooting!”

The verdict was to be carried out in twenty-four hours. This
aroused the ire of the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left,
who at that time were represented in the People’s Commissariat,
and they immediately forwarded, in the name of their party, a
sharp protest against the official confirmation of the death
sentence. The Commissaries, in reply, ordered the immediate
shooting of Schastny.

Apparently Schastny was subjected to torture before his death.
He was killed without witnesses, without a priest, and even
his lawyer was not notified of the hour of his execution.
When his family demanded the surrender of his body to them,
it was denied. What, if otherwise, did the Bolsheviki fear,
and why did they so assiduously conceal the body of the dead
admiral? The same occurred after the execution of Fanny Royd,
who shot at Lenin. There is also indisputable evidence that the
Bolsheviki are resorting to torture at inquests. The assassin
of Commissary Uritzky (whose family, by the way, was entirely
wiped out by the Bolsheviki as a matter of principle, without
even the claim that they knew anything about the planned
attempt) was tortured by his executioners in the Fortress of
St. Peter and Paul.

In the modern revolutionary movement of Russia few men have served
with greater distinction than L. Martov, and none with greater
disinterestedness. His account of the Schastny trial is vibrant with
the passionate hatred of tyranny and oppression characteristic of his
whole career:

He was accused of conspiring against the Soviet power. Captain
Schastny denied it. He asked the tribunal to hear witnesses,
including Bolshevist commissaries, who had been appointed to
watch him. Who was better qualified to state whether he had
really conspired against the Soviet power?

The tribunal refused to hear witnesses. Refused what every
court in the world, except Stolypin’s field court martials,
recognized the worst criminal entitled to.

A man’s life was at stake, the life of a man who had won the
love and confidence of his subordinates, the sailors of the
Baltic Fleet, who protested against the captain’s arrest.
The life of a man who had performed a marvelous feat! He had
somehow managed to take out of Helsingfors harbor all the ships
of the Baltic Fleet, and had thus saved them from capture by
the Finnish Whites.

It was not the enraged Finnish Whites, nor the German
Imperialists, who shot this man. He was put to death by men
who call themselves Russian Communists--by Messrs. Medvedeff,
Bruno, Karelin, Veselovski, Peterson, members of the Supreme
Revolutionary Tribunal.

Captain Schastny was refused the exercise of the right
to which every thief or murderer is entitled--_i.e._, to
call in witnesses for the defense. But the witness for the
prosecution was heard. This witness was Trotsky, Trotsky, who,
as Commissary for War and Naval Affairs, had arrested Captain
Schastny.

At the hearing of the case by the tribunal, Trotsky acted, not
as a witness, but as a prosecutor. As a prosecutor he declared,
“This man is guilty; you must condemn him!” And Trotsky did
it after having gagged the prisoner by refusing to call in
witnesses who might refute the accusations brought against him.

Not much valor is required to fight a man who has been gagged
and whose hands are tied, nor much honesty or loftiness of
character.

It was not a trial; it was a farce. There was no jury. The
judges were officials dependent upon the authorities, receiving
their salaries from the hands of Trotsky and other People’s
Commissaries. And this mockery of a court passed the death
sentence, which was hurriedly carried out before the people,
who were profoundly shaken by this order to kill an innocent
man, could do anything to save him.

Under Nicholas Romanov one could sometimes stop the carrying
out of a monstrously cruel sentence and thus pull the victim
out of the executioner’s hands.

Under Vladimir Ulianov this is impossible. The Bolshevist
leaders slept peacefully when, under the cover of night, the
first victim of their tribunal was stealthily being killed.

No one knew who murdered Schastny or how he was murdered. As
under the Czars, the executioners’ names are concealed from the
people. No one knows whether Trotsky himself came to the place
of the execution to watch and direct it.

Perhaps he, too, slept peacefully and saw in his dreams the
proletariat of the whole world hailing him as the liberator of
mankind, as the leader of the universal revolution.

In the name of Socialism, in thy name, O proletariat, blind
madmen and vainglorious fools staged this appalling farce of
cold-blooded murder.

The evidence we have cited from Bolshevist sources proves conclusively
that the Red Terror was far from being the unimportant episode it
is frequently represented to have been by pro-Bolshevist writers.
It effectually disposes of the assiduously circulated myth that the
Extraordinary Commissions were for the most part concerned with the
suppression of robbery, crimes of violence, and illegal speculation,
and that only in a few exceptional instances did they use their powers
to suppress anti-Bolshevist propaganda. The evidence makes it quite
clear that from the early days of the Bolshevist régime until November,
1918, at least, an extraordinary degree of terrorism prevailed
throughout Soviet Russia. According to a report published by the
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission in February of the present year,
not less than 6,185 persons were executed in 1918 and 3,456 in 1919,
a total of 9,641 in Moscow and Petrograd alone. Of the total number
for the two years, _7,068 persons were shot for counter-revolutionary
activities_, 631 for crimes in office--embezzlement, corruption, and
so on--217 for speculation and profiteering, and 1,204 for all other
classes of crime.

That these figures understate the extent of the Red Terror is
certain. In the first place, the report covers only the work of the
Extraordinary Commissions of Moscow and Petrograd. The numerous
District Extraordinary Commissions are not reported on. In the next
place, there is reason to believe that many of the reports of the
Extraordinary Commissions were falsified in order not to create too
bad an impression. Quite frequently, as a matter of fact, the number
of victims reported by the _Chresvychaikas_ was less than the number
actually known to have been killed. Moreover, the figures given refer
only to the victims of the Extraordinary Commissions, and do not
include those sentenced to death by the other revolutionary tribunals.
The 9,641 executions--even if we accept the figures as full and
complete--refer only to the victims of the Moscow and Petrograd
_Chresvychaikas_, men and women put to death without anything like
a trial.[20] When to these figures there shall be added the victims
of all the District Extraordinary Commissions and of all the other
revolutionary tribunals, the real meaning of the Red Terror will begin
to appear. But even that will not give us the real measure of the Red
Terror, for the simple reason that the many thousands of peasants and
workmen who have been slain in the numerous uprisings, frequently
taking on the character of pitched battles between armed masses and
detachments of Soviet troops, are not included.

[20] The figures are taken from _Russkoe Delo_ (Prague), March 4, 1920.

The naïve and impressionable Mr. Goode says of the judicial system
of Soviet Russia: “Its chief quality would seem to be a certain
simplicity. By a stroke of irony the people’s courts aim not only at
punishment of evil, but also at reformation of the wrongdoer! A first
offender is set free on condition that he must not fall again. Should
he do so, he pays the penalty of his second offense together with that
to which his first crime rendered him liable.”[21] That Mr. Goode
should be ignorant of the fact that such humane measures were not
unknown or uncommon in the administration of justice by the ordinary
criminal courts under czarism is perhaps not surprising. It is somewhat
surprising, however, that he should write as though the Soviet courts
have made a distinct advance in penology. Has he never heard of the
First Offenders Act in his own country, or of our extensive system of
suspended sentences, parole, probation, and so on? It is not necessary
to deny Mr. Goode’s statement, or even to question it. As a commentary
upon it, the following article from _Severnaya Communa_, December 4,
1918, is sufficient:

[21] _Bolshevism at Work_, by William T. Goode, pp. 96-97.

It is impossible to continue silent. It has constantly been
brought to the knowledge of the Viborg Soviet (Petrograd) of
the terrible state of affairs existing in the city prisons.
That people all the time are dying there of hunger; _that
people are detained six and eight months without examination,
and that in many cases it is impossible to learn why they have
been arrested, owing to officials being changed, departments
closed, and documents lost_. In order to confirm, or otherwise,
these rumors, the Soviet decided to send on the 3d November
a commission consisting of the president of the Soviet, the
district medical officer, and district military commissar, to
visit and report on the “Kresti” prison. Comrades! What they
saw and what they heard from the imprisoned is impossible to
describe. Not only were all rumors confirmed, but conditions
were actually found much worse than had been stated. I was
pained and ashamed. I myself was imprisoned under czardom in
that same prison. Then all was clean, and prisoners had clean
linen twice a month. Now, not only are prisoners left without
clean linen, but many are even without blankets, and, as in
the past, for a trifling offense they are placed in solitary
confinement in cold, dark cells. But the most terrible sights
we saw were in the sick-bays. Comrades, there we saw living
dead who hardly had strength enough to whisper their complaints
that they were dying of hunger. In one ward, among the sick
a corpse had lain for several hours, whose neighbors managed
to murmur, “Of hunger he died, and soon of hunger we shall
all die.” Comrades, among them are many who are quite young,
who wish to live and see the sunshine. If we really possess a
workmen’s government such things should not be.

Following the example of Mr. Arthur Ransome, many pro-Bolshevist
writers have assured us that after 1918 the Red Terror practically
ceased to exist. Mr. Ransome makes a great deal of the fact that
in February, 1919, the Central Executive Committee of the People’s
Commissaries “definitely limited the powers of the Extraordinary
Commission.”[22] Although he seems to have attended the meeting at
which this was done, and talks of “the bitter struggle within the party
for and against the almost dictatorial powers of the Extraordinary
Committee,” he appears not to have understood what was done. Perhaps
it ought not to be expected that this writer of fairy-stories who
so naïvely confesses his ignorance of “economics” should comprehend
the revolutionary struggle in Russia. Be that how it may, he does
not state accurately what happened. He says: “Therefore the right of
sentencing was removed from the Extraordinary Commission; but if,
through unforeseen circumstances, the old conditions should return,
they intended that the dictatorial powers of the Commission should
be returned to it until those conditions had ceased.” Actually the
decision was that the power to inflict the death penalty should be
taken from the Extraordinary Commissions, _except where and when
martial law existed_. When Krylenko, Diakonov, and others protested
against the outrage of permitting the Extraordinary Commissions to
execute people without proof of their guilt, _Izvestia_ answered
in words which clearly reveal the desperate and brutal spirit of
Bolshevism: “_If among one hundred executed one was guilty, this would
be satisfactory and would sanction the action of the Commission._”

[22] _Russia in 1919_, by Arthur Ransome, pp. 108-114.

As a matter of fact, the resolution which, according to Mr. Ransome,
“definitely limited the powers of the Extraordinary Commission,” was
an evasion of the issue. Not only was martial law in existence in the
principal cities, and not only was it easy to declare martial law
anywhere in Soviet Russia, but it was a very easy matter for accused
persons to be brought to Moscow or Petrograd and there sentenced
by the Extraordinary Commission. _This was actually done in many
cases after the February decision._ Mr. Ransome quotes Dzerzhinsky
to the effect that criminality had been greatly decreased by the
Extraordinary Commissions--in Moscow by 80 per cent.!--and that there
was now, February, 1919, no longer danger of “large scale revolts.”
What a pity that the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission did not
consult Mr. Ransome before publishing its report in February of this
year! That report shows, first, that in 1919 the activities of the
Extraordinary Commission were much greater than in 1918; second, that
the number of arrests made in 1919 was 80,662 as against 46,348 in
1918; third, that in 1919 the arrests of “ordinary criminals” nearly
equaled the total number of arrests made in 1918 for _all causes_,
including counter-revolutionary activity, speculation, crimes in
office, and general crime. The figures given in the report are: arrests
for ordinary crimes only in 1919, 39,957; arrests for all causes in
1918, 47,348. When it is remembered that all the other revolutionary
tribunals were active throughout this period, how shall we reconcile
this record of the Extraordinary Commission with Mr. Ransome’s account?
The fact is that crime steadily increased throughout 1919, _and that
at the very time Mr. Ransome was in Moscow conditions there were
exceedingly bad, as the report of arrests and convictions shows_.

Terrorism continued in Russia throughout 1919, the rose-colored reports
of specially coached correspondents to the contrary notwithstanding.
There was, indeed, a period in the early summer when the rigors of the
Red Terror were somewhat relaxed. This seems to have been connected
with the return of the bourgeois specialists to the factories and the
officers of the Czar’s army to positions of importance in the Red Army.
This could not fail to lessen the persecution of the bourgeoisie,
at least for a time. In July the number of arrests made by the
Extraordinary Commission was small, only 4,301; in November it reached
the high level of 14,673. To those who claim that terrorism did not
exist in Russia during 1919, the best answer is--this very illuminating
official Bolshevist report.

On January 10, 1919, _Izvestia_ published an article by Trotsky in
which the leader of the military forces of the Soviet Republic dealt
with the subject of terrorism. This was, of course, in advance of the
meeting which Mr. Ransome so completely misunderstood. Trotsky said:

By its terror against saboteurs the proletariat does not at
all say, “I shall wipe out all of you and get along without
specialists.” Such a program would be a program of hopelessness
and ruin. _While dispersing, arresting, and shooting saboteurs
and conspirators_, the proletariat says, “_I shall break your
will, because my will is stronger than yours, and I shall force
you to serve me_.” Terror as the demonstration of the will
and strength of the working-class is historically justified,
precisely because the proletariat was able thereby to break
the will of the Intelligentsia, pacify the professional men of
various categories and work, and gradually subordinate them to
its own aims within the fields of their specialties.

On April 2, 1919, _Izvestia_ published a proclamation by Dzerzhinsky,
president of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, warning that
“demonstrations and appeals of any kind will be suppressed without
pity”:

In view of the discovery of a conspiracy which aimed to
organize an armed demonstration against the Soviet authority by
means of explosions, destruction of railways, and fires, the
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission warns that demonstrations
and appeals of any kind will be suppressed without pity. In
order to save Petrograd and Moscow from famine, in order
to save hundreds and thousands of innocent victims, the
All-Russian Extraordinary Commission will be obliged to take
the most severe measures of punishment against all who will
appeal for White Guard demonstration or for attempts at armed
uprising.

[Signed] F. DZERZHINSKY,
_President of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission_.

The _Severnaya Communa_ of April 2, 1919, contains an official report
of the shooting by the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission of a
printer named Michael Ivanovsky “_for the printing of proclamations
issued by the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left_.” Later several
Socialists-Revolutionists, among them Soronov, were shot “for having
proclamations and appeals in their possession.”

On May 1, 1919, the _Izvestia_ of Odessa, official organ of the Soviet
in that city, published the following account of the infliction of the
death penalty for belonging to an organization. It said:

The Special Branch of the Staff of the Third Army has uncovered
the existence of an organization, the Union of the Russian
People, now calling itself “the Russian Union for the People
and the State.” The entire committee was arrested.

After giving the names of those arrested the account continued:

The case of those arrested was transferred to the Military
Tribunal of the Soviet of the Third Army. Owing to the obvious
activity of the members of the Union directed against the
peaceful population and the conquests of the Revolution, the
Revolutionary Tribunal decided to sentence the above-mentioned
persons to death. The verdict was carried out on the same night.

On May 6, 1919, _Severnaya Communa_ published the following order from
the Defense Committee:

Order No. 8 of the Defense Committee. The Extraordinary
Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution is to take measures
to suppress all forms of official crime, and not to hesitate at
shooting the guilty. The Extraordinary Committee is bound to
indict not only those who are guilty of active crime, but also
those who are guilty of inaction of authority or condonement of
crime, bearing in mind that the punishment must be increased in
proportion to the responsibility attached to the post filled by
the guilty official.

On May 14, 1919, _Izvestia_ published an article by a Bolshevist
official describing what happened in the Volga district as the
Bolsheviki advanced. This article is important because it calls
attention to a form of terrorism not heretofore mentioned: it will be
remembered that in the latter part of 1918 the Bolsheviki introduced
the system of rationing out food upon class lines, giving to the Red
Army three times as much food per capita as to the average of the civil
population, and dividing the latter into categories. The article under
consideration shows very clearly how this system was made an instrument
of terrorism:

Instructions were received from Moscow to forbid free trade,
and to introduce the class system of feeding. After much
confusion, _this made the population starve in a short time_,
and rebel against the food dictatorship.... “Was it necessary
to introduce the class system of feeding into the Volga
district so haphazardly?” asks the writer. “Oh no. _There
was enough bread ready for shipment in that region, and in
many places it was rotting, because of the lack of railroad
facilities._ The class-feeding system did not increase
the amount of bread.... It did create, together with the
inefficient policy, and the lack of a distribution system, a
state of starvation, which provoked dissatisfaction.”

Throughout 1919 the official Bolshevist press continued to publish
accounts of the arrest of hostages. Thus _Izvestia_ of the Petrograd
Soviet of Workmen’s and Red Army Deputies (No. 185), August 16, 1919,
published an official order by the acting Commandant of the fortified
district of Petrograd, a Bolshevist official named Kozlovsky. The two
closing paragraphs of this order follow:

I declare that all guilty of arson, also all those who have
knowledge of the same and fail to report the culprits to the
authorities, _will be shot forthwith_.

I warn all that in the event of repeated cases of arson I will
not hesitate to adopt extreme measures, _including the shooting
of the bourgeoisie’s hostages_, in view of the fact that all
the White Guards’ plots directed against the proletarian state
_must be regarded not as the crime of individuals, but as the
offense of the entire enemy class_.

That hostages were actually shot, and not merely held under arrest, is
clearly stated in the _Severnaya Communa_, March 11, 1919:

By order of the Military Revolutionary Committee of Petrograd
several officers were shot for _spreading untrue rumors that
the Soviet authority had lost the confidence of the people_.

_All relatives of the officers of the 86th Infantry Regiment
(which deserted to the Whites) were shot._

The same journal published, September 2, 1919, the following decree of
the War Council of the Petrograd Fortified District:

It has been ascertained that on the 17th of August there was
maliciously cut down in the territory of the Ovtzenskaya
Colony about 200 sazhensks of telegraph and telephone wire. In
consequence of the above-mentioned criminal offense, the War
Council of the Petrograd Fortified District has ordered--

(1) To impose on the Ovtzenskaya Colony a fine of 500,000
rubles; (2) the guarding of the intactness of the lines
to be made incumbent upon the population under reciprocal
responsibility; and (3) _hostages to be taken_.

Note: The decree of the War Council was carried out on the 30th
of August. The following hostages have been taken: Languinen,
P. M.; Languinen, Ya. P.; Finck, F. Kh.; Ikert, E. S.; Luneff,
F. L.; Dalinguer, P. M.; Dalinguer, P. Ya.; Raw, Ya. I.;
Shtraw, V. M.; Afanassieff, L. K.

This drastic order was issued and carried out nearly a month before the
district was declared to be in a state of siege.

* * * * *

The _Krasnaya Gazeta_, November 4, 1919, published a significant
list of Red Army officers who had deserted to the Whites and of the
retaliatory arrests of innocent members of their families. Mothers,
brothers, sisters, and wives were arrested and punished for the acts of
their relatives in deserting the Red Army. The list follows:

1. Khomutov, D. C.--brother and mother arrested.

2. Piatnitzky, D. A.--mother, sister, and brother arrested.

3. Postnov--mother and sister arrested.

4. Agalakov, A. M.--wife, father, and mother arrested.

5. Haratkviech, B.--wife and sister arrested.

6. Kostylev, V. I.--wife and brother arrested.

7. Smyrnov, A. A.--mother, sister, and father arrested.

8. Chebykin--wife arrested.

In September, 1919, practically all the Bolshevist papers published the
following order, signed by Trotsky:

I have ordered several times that officers with indefinite
political convictions should not be appointed to military
posts, especially when the families of such officers live
on the territory controlled by enemies of the Soviet Power.
My orders are not being carried out. In one of our armies
an officer whose family lives on the territory controlled
by Kolchak was appointed as a commander of a division.
Consequently, this commander betrayed his division and went
over, together with his staff, to the enemy. Once more I order
the Military Commissaries to make a thorough cleansing of all
Commanding Staffs. In case an officer goes over to the enemy,
_his family should be made to feel the consequences of his
betrayal_.

Early in November, 1919, the Petrograd Extraordinary Commission
announced that by its orders forty-two persons had been shot. A number
of these were ordinary criminals; several others had been guilty
of selling cocaine. Among the other victims we find one Maximovich,
“for organizing a mass desertion of Red Army soldiers to the Whites”;
one Shramchenko, “_for participating in a counter-revolutionary
conspiracy_”; E. K. Kaulbars, “for spying”; Ploozhnikoff and
Demeshchenke, “_for exciting the politically unconscious masses and
hounding them on against the Soviet Power_.”

In considering this terribly impressive accumulation of evidence from
the Bolshevist press we must bear in mind that it represents not the
criticism of a free press, but only that measure of truth which managed
to find its way through the most drastic censorship ever known in any
country at any time. Not only were the organs of the anti-Bolshevist
Socialists suppressed, but even the Soviet press was not free to
publish the truth. Trotsky himself made vigorous protest in the
_Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee (No. 13) against the
censorship which “prevented the publication of the news that Perm was
taken by the White Guards.” A congress of Soviet journalists was held
at Moscow, in May, 1919, and made protest against the manner in which
they were restrained from criticizing Soviet misrule. The _Izvestia_
of the Provincial Executive Committee, May 8, 1919, quotes from this
protest as follows:

The picture of the provincial Soviet press is melancholy
enough. We journalists are particularly “up against it” when we
endeavor to expose the shortcomings of the local Soviet rule
and the local Soviet officials. Immediately we are met with
threats of arrest and banishment, _threats which are often
carried out_. In Kaluga a Soviet editor was nearly shot for a
remark about a drunken communist.

Under such conditions as are indicated in this protest the evidence we
have cited was published. What the record would have been if only there
was freedom for the opposition press can only be imagined. In the light
of such a mass of authoritative evidence furnished by the Bolsheviki
themselves, of what use is it for casual visitors to Russia, like Mr.
Goode and Mr. Lansbury, for example, to attempt to throw dust into our
eyes and make it appear that acts of terrorism and tyranny are no more
common in Russia than in countries like England, France, and America?
And how, in the light of such testimony, shall we explain the ecstatic
praise of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki by men and women who call
themselves Socialists and Liberals, and who profess to love freedom? It
is true that the abolition of the death penalty has now been decreed,
the decree going into effect on January 22, 1920. Lenin has declared
that this date marks the passing of the policy of blood, and that only
a renewal of armed intervention by the Allies can force a return to it.
We shall see. This is not the first time the death penalty has been
“abolished” by decree during the Bolshevist régime. Some of us remember
that on November 7, 1918, the Central Executive Committee in Moscow
decreed the abolition of the death penalty and a general amnesty. After
that murder, by order of the Extraordinary Commissions, went on worse
than before.[23]

[23] As proofs of these pages are being revised, word comes that the
death penalty has been revived--_Vide_ London _Times_, May 26, 1920.

In Odessa an investigation was made into the workings of the
_Chresvychaika_ and a list of fifteen classes of crimes for which
the death penalty had been imposed and carried out was published.
The list enumerated various offenses, ranging from espionage and
counter-revolutionary agitation to “dissoluteness.” The fifteenth and
last class on the list read, “Reasons unknown.” Perhaps these words sum
up the only answer to our last question.

VIII

INDUSTRY UNDER SOVIET CONTROL

For the student of the evolution of Bolshevism in Russia there is,
perhaps, no task more difficult than to unravel the tangled skein of
the history of the first few weeks after the _coup d’état_. Whoever
attempts to set forth the development of events during those weeks
in an ordered and consecutive narrative, and to present an accurate,
yet intelligible, account of the conditions that prevailed, must toil
patiently through a bewildering snarled mass of conflicting testimony,
charges and counter-charges, claims and counter-claims. Statements
concerning apparently simple matters of fact, made by witnesses whose
competence and probity are not to be lightly questioned, upon events of
which they were witnesses, are simply irreconcilable. Moreover, there
is a perfect welter of sweeping generalizations and an almost complete
lack of such direct and definite information, statistical and other, as
can readily be found relating to both the earlier and the later stages
of the Revolution.

Let us first set down the facts concerning which there is
substantial agreement on the part of the partizans of the
Bolsheviki and the various factions opposed to them, ranging
from the Constitutional-Democrats to such factions as the
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left and the “Internationalist”
section of the Menshevist Social Democrats, both of which were quite
closely allied to the Bolsheviki in sympathy and in theory. At the
time when the Bolsheviki raised the cry, “All power to the Soviets!”
in October, 1917, arrangements were well under way for the election,
upon the most democratic basis imaginable, of a great representative
constitutional convention, the Constituent Assembly. Not only had the
Bolsheviki nominated their candidates and entered upon an electoral
campaign in advocacy of their program; not only were they, in common
with all other parties, pledged to the holding of the Constituent
Assembly; much more important is the fact that they professed to be,
and were by many regarded as, the special champions and defenders of
the Constituent Assembly, solicitous above all else for its convocation
and its integrity. From June onward Trotsky, Kamenev, and other
Bolshevist leaders had professed to fear only that the Provisional
Government would either refuse to convoke the Constituent Assembly or
in some manner prevent its free action. No small part of the influence
possessed by the Bolsheviki immediately prior to the overthrow of
Kerensky was due to the fact that, far from being suspected of
hostility to the Constituent Assembly, they were widely regarded as
its most vigorous and determined upholders. To confirm that belief the
Council of the People’s Commissaries issued this, its first decree:

In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic, chosen
by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies with participation of peasant deputies, the
Council of People’s Commissars decrees:

1. The elections for the Constituent Assembly shall take place
at the date determined upon--November 12th.

2. All electoral commissions, organs of local self-government,
Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies, and
soldiers’ organizations on the front should make every effort
to assure free and regular elections at the date determined
upon.

In the name of the Government of the Russian Republic,

_The President of the Council of People’s Commissars_,
VLADIMIR ULIANOV--LENIN.

That was in November, 1917--and the Constituent Assembly has not yet
been convoked. In _Pravda_, December 26, 1917, Lenin published a series
of propositions to show that the elections, which had taken place
since the Bolsheviki assumed power, did not give a clear indication of
the real voice of the masses! The elections had gone heavily against
the Bolsheviki, and that fact doubtless explains Lenin’s disingenuous
argument. Later on Lenin was able to announce that no assembly elected
by the masses by universal suffrage could be accepted! “The Soviet
Republic repudiates the hypocrisy of formal equality of all human
beings,” he wrote in his _Letter to American Workmen_.

It is quite certain that the political power and influence of the
Soviets was never so small at any time since the birth of the
Revolution in March as it was when the Bolsheviki raised the cry,
“All power to the Soviets!” The reasons for this, if not obvious, are
easily intelligible: the mere facts that the election of a thoroughly
democratic constitutional convention at an early date was assured,
and that the electoral campaign had already begun, were by themselves
sufficient to cause many of those actively engaged in the revolutionary
struggle to turn their interest from the politics of the Soviets to
the greater political issues connected with the campaign for the
Constituent Assembly elections. There were other factors at work
lessening the popular interest in and, consequently, the political
influence of, the Soviets. In the first place, the hectic excitement of
the early stages of the Revolution had passed off, together with its
novelty, and life had assumed a _tempo_ nearer normal; in the second
place, city Dumas and the local Zemstvos, which had been elected during
the summer, upon a thoroughly democratic basis, were functioning, and,
naturally, absorbing much energy which had hitherto been devoted to the
Soviets.

Concerning these things there is little room for dispute. The
_Izvestia_ of the Soviets again and again called attention to the
waning power and influence of the Soviets, always cheerfully and with
wise appreciation. On September 28, 1917, it said:

At last a truly democratic government, born of the will of
all classes of the Russian people, the first rough form of
the future liberal parliamentary régime, has been formed.
Ahead of us is the Constituent Assembly, which will solve all
questions of fundamental law, and whose composition will be
essentially democratic. The function of the Soviets is at an
end, and the time is approaching when they must retire, with
the rest of the revolutionary machinery, from the stage of a
free and victorious people, whose weapons shall hereafter be
the peaceful ones of political action.

On October 23, 1917, _Izvestia_ published an important article dealing
with this subject, saying:

We ourselves are being called the “undertakers” of our own
organization. In reality, we are the hardest workers in
constructing the new Russia.... When autocracy and the entire
bureaucratic régime fell, we set up the Soviets as barracks in
which all the democracy could find temporary shelter. Now, in
place of barracks we are building the permanent edifice of a
new system, and naturally the people will gradually leave the
barracks for the more comfortable quarters.

Dealing with the lessening activity of the local Soviets, scores of
which had ceased to exist, the Soviet organ said:

This is natural, for the people are coming to be interested in
the more permanent organs of legislation--the municipal Dumas
and the Zemstvos.

Continuing, the article said:

In the important centers of Petrograd and Moscow, where the
Soviets were best organized, they did not take in all the
democratic elements.... The majority of the intellectuals did
not participate, and many workers also; some of the workers
because they were politically backward, others because the
center of gravity for them was in their unions.... We cannot
deny that these organizations are firmly united with the
masses, whose every-day needs are better served by them....

That the local democratic administrations are being
energetically organized is highly important. The city Dumas are
elected by universal suffrage, and in purely local matters have
more authority than the Soviets. Not a single democrat will see
anything wrong in this....

... Elections to the municipalities are being conducted
in a better and more democratic way than the elections
to the Soviets.... All classes are represented in the
municipalities.... And as soon as the local self-governments
begin to organize life in the municipalities, the rôle of the
local Soviets naturally ends....

... There are two factors in the falling off of interest in
the Soviets. The first we may attribute to the lowering of
political interest in the masses; the second to the growing
effort of provincial and local governing bodies to organize the
building of new Russia.... The more the tendency lies in this
latter direction the sooner disappears the significance of the
Soviets....

It seems to be hardly less certain, though less capable of complete
demonstration, perhaps, that the influence of the Soviets in the
factories was also on the wane. Perhaps it would be fairer to say that
there was an increasing sense of responsibility and a lessening of the
dangerous recklessness of the earlier stages of the Revolution. The
factory Soviets in the time of the Provisional Government varied so
greatly in their character and methods that it is rather difficult to
accurately represent them in a brief description. Many of them were
similar, in practice, to the shop meetings of the trades-unions;
others more nearly resembled the Whitley Councils of England. There
were still others, however, which asserted practically complete
ownership of the factories and forced the real owners out.

On March 20, 1917, _Izvestia_ said:

If any owner of an undertaking who is dissatisfied with the
demands made by the workmen refuses to carry on the business,
then the workmen must resolutely insist on the management
of the work being given over into their hands, under the
supervision of the Commissary of the Soviets.

That is precisely what happened in many cases. We must not forget that
the Bolsheviki did not introduce Soviet control of industry. That
they did so is a very general belief, but, like so many other beliefs
concerning Russia, it is erroneous. The longest trial of the Soviet
control of industry took place under the régime of the Provisional
Government, in the pre-Bolshevist period. Many of the worst evils of
the system were developed during that period, though as a result of
Bolshevist propaganda and intrigue to a large degree.

Industrial control by the workers, during the pre-Bolshevist period of
the Revolution, and especially during the spring and early summer, was
principally carried on by means of four distinct types of organization,
to all of which the general term “Soviet” was commonly applied. Perhaps
a brief description of each of these types will help to interpret the
history of this period:

(1) Factory Councils. These may be called the true factory Soviets.
They existed in most factories, large and small alike, their size
varying in proportion to the number of workers employed. In a small
factory the Council might consist of seven or nine members; in a
large factory the number might be sixty. The latter figure seems
rarely to have been exceeded. Most of the Councils were elected by the
workers directly, upon a basis of equal suffrage, every wage-worker,
whether skilled or unskilled, male or female, being entitled to vote.
Boys and girls were on the same footing as their elders in this
respect. Generally the voting was done at mass-meetings, held during
working-hours, the ordinary method being a show of hands. While there
were exceptions to this rule, it was rare that foremen, technical
supervisors, or other persons connected with the management were
permitted to vote. In some cases the Council was elected indirectly,
that is to say, it was selected by a committee, called the Workshop
Committee. The Factory Council was not elected for any specified
period of time, as a rule, and where a definite period for holding
office was fixed, the right of recall was so easily invoked, and was
so freely exercised, that the result was the same as if there had been
no such provision. As a result of the nervous tension of the time, the
inevitable reaction against long-continued repression, there was much
friction at first and recalls and re-elections were common. The present
writer has received several reports, from sources of indubitable
authority, of factories in which two, and even three, Council elections
were held in less than one month! Of course, this is an incidental
fact, ascribable to the environment rather than to the institution.
The Councils held their meetings during working-hours, the members
receiving full pay for the time thus spent. Usually the Council would
hold a daily meeting, and it was not uncommon for the meetings to last
all day, and even into the evening--overtime being paid for the extra
hours. Emile Vandervelde, the Belgian Socialist Minister of State--a
most sympathetic observer--is authority for the statement that in
one establishment in Petrograd, employing 8,000 skilled workers, the
Factory Council, composed of forty-three men who each earned sixteen
rubles per day of eight hours, sat regularly eight hours per day.[24]

[24] _Three Aspects of the Russian Revolution_, by Emile Vandervelde,
p. 71.

To describe fully the functions of the Factory Councils would require
many pages, so complex were they. Only a brief synopsis of their most
important rights and duties is possible here. Broadly speaking, they
possessed the right of control over everything, but no responsibility
for successful management and administration. In their original form,
and where the owners still remained at the head, the Councils did
not interfere in such matters as the securing of raw materials, for
example. They did not interest themselves in the financial side of the
undertaking, at least not to see that its operations were profitable.
Their concern was to control the working conditions and to “guard the
interests of the workers.” They sometimes assumed the right to refuse
to do work upon contracts of which they disapproved. Jealous in their
exercise of the right to _control_, they would assume no responsibility
for _direction_. At the same time, however, they asserted--and
generally enforced--their right to determine everything relating to the
engaging or dismissal of workers, the fixing of wages, hours of labor,
rules of employment, and so on, as well as _the selection of foremen,
superintendents, technical experts, and even the principal managers of
the establishments_. Professor Ross quotes the statement made by the
spokesman of the employers at Baku, adding that the men did strike and
win:

They ask that we grant leave on pay for a certain period to
a sick employee. Most of us are doing that already. They
stipulate that on dismissal an employee shall receive a month’s
pay for every year he has been in our service. Agreed. They
demand that no workman be dismissed without the consent of
a committee representing the men. That’s all right. They
require that we take on new men from a list submitted by
them. That’s reasonable enough. They know far better than we
can whether or not a fellow is safe to work alongside of in
a dangerous business like ours. But when they demand control
over the hiring and firing of _all_ our employees--foremen,
superintendents, and managers as well as workmen--we balk.
We don’t see how we can yield that point without losing the
control essential to discipline and efficiency. Yet if we don’t
sign to-night, they threaten to strike.[25]

[25] _Russia in Upheaval_, by E. A. Ross, p. 277.

(2) Workshop Committees. This term was sometimes used instead of
“Factory Councils,” particularly in the case of smaller factories, and
much confusion in the published reports of the time may be attributed
to this fact. Nothing is gained by an arbitrary division of Factory
Councils on the basis of size, since there was no material difference
in functions or methods. The term “Workshop Committee” was, however,
applied to a different organization entirely, which was to be found
in practically every large industrial establishment, along with, and
generally subordinated to, the Factory Council. These committees
usually carried out the policies formulated by the superior Factory
Councils. They did the greater part of the work usually performed by
a foreman, and their functions were sometimes summed up in the term
“collective foremanship.” They decided who should be taken on and who
employed; they decided when fines or other forms of punishment should
be imposed for poor work, sabotage, and other offenses. The foreman was
immediately responsible to them. Appeals from the decisions of these
committees might be made to the Councils, either by the owners or the
workers. Like the Councils, the committees were elected by universal,
equal voting at open meetings; indeed, in some cases, only the Workshop
Committee was so elected, being charged with the task of selecting the
Factory Council.

(3) Wages Committees. These committees existed in the large
establishments, as a rule, especially those in which the labor employed
was of many kinds and varying degrees of skill. Like all other factory
organizations, they were elected by vote of the employees. Responsible
to the Factory Councils, though independently elected, the Wages
Committees classified all workers into their respective wage-groups,
fixed prices for piece-work, and so on. They could, and frequently did,
decide these matters independently, without consulting the management
at all.

(4) Committees of Arbitration and Adjustment. These seem to have been
less common than the other committees already described. Elected solely
by the workers, in the same manner as the other bodies described, they
were charged with hearing and settling disputes arising, no matter
from what cause. They dealt with the charges brought by individual
employees, whether against the employers or against fellow-employees;
they dealt, also, with complaints by the workers as a whole against
conditions, with disputes over wages, and so on. _In all cases of
disputes between workers and employers the decision was left entirely
to the elected representatives of the workers._

The foregoing gives a very fair idea of the proletarian machinery set
up in the factories under the Provisional Government. In one factory
might be found operating these four popularly elected representative
bodies, all of them holding meetings in working-hours and being paid
for the time consumed; all of them involving more or less frequent
elections. No matter how moderate and restrained the description may
be, the impression can hardly fail to be one of appalling wastefulness
and confusion. As a matter of fact, there is very general agreement
that in practice, after the first few weeks, what seems a grotesque
system worked reasonably well, or, at least, far better than its
critics had believed possible. Of course, there _was_ much overlapping
of functions; there _was_ much waste. On the other hand, wasteful
strikes were avoided and the productive processes were maintained. Of
course, the experiment was made under abnormal conditions. Not very
much in the way of certain conclusion can be adduced from it. Opponents
of the Soviet theory and system will always point to the striking
decline of productive efficiency and say that it was the inevitable
result of the Soviet control; believers in the theory and the system
will say that the inefficiency would have been greater but for the
Soviets.

That there was an enormous decline in productive efficiency during
the early part of the period of Soviet control cannot be disputed.
The evidence of this is too overwhelmingly conclusive. As early as
April, 1917, serious reports of this decline began to be made. It was
said that in some factories the per capita daily production was less
than a third of what it was a few weeks before. The air was filled
with charges that the workers were loafing and malingering. On April
11th Tseretelli denounced these “foul slanders” at a meeting of the
Petrograd Soviet and was wildly cheered. Nevertheless, one fact stood
out--namely, the sharp decline in productivity in almost every line.
There were not a few cases in which the owners and highly trained
managers were forced out entirely and their places filled by wholly
incompetent men possessing no technical training at all. An extreme
illustration is quoted by Ross:[26] In a factory in southern Russia
the workers forced the owner out and then undertook to run the plant
themselves. When they had used up the small supply of raw material
they had they began to sell the machines out of the works in order to
get money to buy more raw material; then, when they obtained the raw
material, they lacked the machinery for working it up. Of course, the
incident is simply an illustration of extreme folly, merely. Men misuse
safety razors to commit suicide with in extreme cases, and the misuse
of Soviet power in isolated cases proves little of value. On the other
hand, the case cited by Ross is only an extreme instance of a very
general practice. Many factories were taken over in the same way, after
the competent directors had been driven out, and were brought to ruin
by the Soviets. It was a general practice or, at any rate, a common
one, which drew from Skobelev, Minister of Labor, this protest, which
_Izvestia_ published at the beginning of May:

[26] Ross, _op. cit._, p. 283.

The seizure of factories makes workmen without any experience
in management, and without working capital, temporarily masters
of such undertakings, but soon leads to their being closed
down, or to the subjugation of the workmen to a still harder
taskmaster.

On July 10th Skobelev issued another stirring appeal to the workers,
pointing out that “the success of the struggle against economic
devastation depends upon the productivity of labor, and pointing out
the danger of the growing anarchy. The appeal is too long to quote in
its entirety, but the following paragraphs give a good idea of it,
and, at the same time, indicate how serious the demoralization of the
workers had become:

Workmen, comrades, I appeal to you at a critical period of
the Revolution. Industrial output is rapidly declining, the
quantity of necessary manufactured articles is diminishing, the
peasants are deprived of industrial supplies, we are threatened
with fresh food complications and increasing national
destitution.

* * * * *

The Revolution has swept away the oppression of the police
régime, which stifled the labor movement, and the liberated
working-class is enabled to defend its economic interests by
the mere force of its class solidarity and unity. They possess
the freedom of strikes, they have professional unions, which
can adapt the tactics of a mass economic movement, according to
the conditions of the present economic crisis.

However, at present purely elemental tendencies are gaining the
upper hand over organized movement, and without regard to the
limited resources of the state, and without any reckoning as
to the state of the industry in which you are employed, and to
the detriment of the proletarian class movement, you sometimes
obtain an increase of wages which disorganizes the enterprise
and drains the exchequer.

Frequently the workmen refuse all negotiations and by menace
of violence force the gratification of their demands. They
use violence against officials and managers, dismiss them of
their own accord, interfere arbitrarily with the technical
management, and even attempt to take the whole enterprise into
their own hands.

* * * * *

_Workmen, comrades, our socialistic ideals shall be attained
not by the seizure of separate factories, but by a high
standard of economic organization, by the intelligence of the
masses, and the wide development of the country’s productive
forces...._ Workmen, comrades, remember not only your rights,
but also your duties; think not only of your wishes, but of
the possibilities of granting them, not only of your own good,
but of the sacrifices necessary for the consolidation of the
Revolution and the triumph of our ideals.

In July the per capita output in the munition-works of Petrograd was
reported as being only 25 per cent. of what it was at the beginning of
the year. In August Kornilov told the Moscow Democratic Conference that
the productivity of the workers in the great gun and shell plants had
declined 60 per cent., as compared with the three months immediately
prior to the Revolution; that the decline at the aeroplane-factories
was still greater, not less than 70 per cent. No denial of this came
from the representatives of the Soviets. In Petrograd, Nijni-Novgorod,
Saratov, and other large centers there was an estimated general decline
of production of between 60 and 70 per cent.

The representatives of the workers, the Soviet leaders, said that
the decline, which they admitted, was due to causes over which the
Soviets had no control to a far greater degree than to any conscious
or unconscious sabotage by the workers. They admitted that many of
the workers had not yet got used to freedom; that they interpreted it
as meaning freedom from work. There was a very natural reaction, they
said, against the tremendous pace which had been maintained under the
old régime. They insisted, however, that this temporary failing of
the workers was a minor cause only, and that far greater causes were
(1) deterioration of machinery; (2) withdrawal for military reasons
and purposes of many of the most capable and efficient workers; (3)
shortage and poor quality of materials.

There is room here for an endless controversy, and the present writer
does not intend to enter into it. He is convinced that the three causes
named by the Soviet defenders were responsible for a not inconsiderable
proportion of the decline in productivity, but that the Soviets and
the impaired morale of the workers were the main causes. In the mining
of coal and iron, the manufacture of munitions, locomotives, textiles,
metal goods, paper, and practically everything else, the available
reports show an enormous increase in production cost per unit,
accompanied by a very great decline in average per capita production.
It is true that there were exceptions to this rule, that there were
factories in which, after the first few days of the revolutionary
excitation in March, production per capita rose and was maintained at
a high level for a long time--until the Bolsheviki secured ascendancy
in those factories, in fact. The writer has seen and examined numerous
reports indicating this, but prefers to confine himself to the citation
of such reports as come with the authority of responsible and trusted
witnesses.

Such a report is that of the Social Democrat, the workman Menshekov,
concerning the Ijevski factory with its 40,000 workmen, and of the
sales department of which he was made manager when full Soviet
control was established. In that position he had access to the
books showing production for the years 1916, 1917, and 1918, and the
figures show that under the Provisional Government production rose,
but that it declined with the rise of Bolshevism among the workers
and declined more rapidly when the Bolsheviki gained control. Such
another witness is the trades-unionist and Social Democrat, Oupovalov,
concerning production in the great Sormovo Works, in the Province of
Nijni-Novgorod, which during the war employed 20,000 persons. Not only
was production maintained, but there was even a marked improvement.
The writer has been permitted to examine the documentary evidence in
the possession of these men and believes that it fully confirms and
justifies the claim that, where there was an earnest desire on the part
of the workers to maintain and even to improve production, this proved
possible under Soviet control.

The fact seems quite clear to the writer (though perhaps impossible to
prove by an adequate volume of concrete evidence) that the impaired
morale of the workers which resulted in lessened production was due
to two principal causes, namely, Bolshevist propaganda and the lack
of an intelligent understanding on the part of masses of workers who
were not mentally or morally ready for the freedom which was suddenly
thrust upon them. The condition of these latter is readily understood
and appreciated. The disciplines and self-compulsions of freedom are
not learned in a day. When we reflect upon the conditions that obtained
under czarism, we can hardly wonder that so many of the victims of
those conditions should have mistaken license for liberty, or that
they should have failed to see the vital connection between their own
honest effort in the shop and the success of the Revolution they were
celebrating.

All through the summer the Bolsheviki were carrying on their propaganda
among the workers in the shops as well as among the troops at the
front. Just as they preached desertion to the soldiers, so they
preached sabotage and advocated obstructive strikes among the workers
in the factories. This was a logical thing for them to do; they wanted
to break up the military machine in order to compel peace, and a
blow at that machine was as effective when struck in the factory as
anywhere else. For men who were preaching mass desertion and mutiny
at the front, sabotage in the munition-works at the rear, or in the
transportation service on which the army depended, was a logical
policy. It is as certain as anything can be that the Bolshevist
agitation was one of the primary causes of the alarming decrease in
the production during the régime of the Provisional Government. On
the other hand, the Socialist leaders who supported the Provisional
Government waged a vigorous propaganda among the workers, urging them
to increase production. Where they made headway, in general there
production was maintained, or the decline was relatively small. The
counterpart of that patriotism which Kerensky preached among the troops
at the front with such magnificent energy was preached among the
factory-workers. Here is what Jandarmov says:

It is a mistake to suppose that output was interfered with,
for, to do our working-class justice, nowhere was work delayed
for more than two days, and in many factories this epoch-making
development was taken without a pause in the ordinary routine.

I cannot too strongly insist upon the altogether unanimous
idealism of those early days. There was not an ugly streak
in that beautiful dawn where now the skies are glowering and
red and frightful. I say that output was speeded up. I, as
chairman of the first Soviet,[27] assure you that we received
fifty-seven papers from workmen containing proposals for
increasing the efficiency of the factory; and that spirit
lasted three months, figures of output went well up and old
closed-down factories were reopened. _New Russia was bursting
with energy--the sluice-gates of our character were unlocked._

[27] That is, “first Soviet” at the Lisvinsk factory, about seventy
miles from Perm.

There must have been a great deal of that exalted feeling among the
intelligent working-men of Russia in those stirring times. No one who
has known anything of the spiritual passion, of sacrificial quality,
which has characterized the Russian revolutionary movement can doubt
this. Of course, Jandarmov is referring to the early months before
Bolshevism began to spread in that district. Then there was a change.
It was the old, old story of rapidly declining production:

But after the first few months the workers as a whole began to
fall under the spell of catchwords and stock phrases. Agitation
began among the lower workers. Bolshevism started in the ranks
of unskilled labor. They clamored for the reduction of hours
and down went the output. The defenders of the idea of the
shortest possible working-day were the same men who afterward
turned out very fiends of Bolshevism and every disorder. I
watched the growing of their madness and the development of
their claims, each more impossible than the last.

In the Kiselovski mines the output of 2,000,000 poods monthly
dropped to 300,000, and the foundries of Upper Serginski
produced 1,200 poods of iron instead of 2,000. Why such a fall?
The engineers wondered how workers could reduce output to such
an extent if they tried, but one soon ceased to wonder at the
disasters that followed in quick succession.

There was anarchy in the factories and a premium on idleness
became the order of the day. It was a positive danger to work
more than the laziest unskilled laborer, because this was the
type of man who always seemed to get to the top of the Soviet.
“Traitor to the interests of Labor” you were called if you
exceeded the time limit, which soon became two hours a day.[28]

[28] These extracts are from a personal report by Jandarmov, sent to
the present writer.

By September, 1917, a healthy reaction against the abuses of Soviet
industrial control was making itself felt in the factories. The workers
were making less extravagant demands and accepting the fact that
they could gain nothing by paralyzing production; that reducing the
quantity and the quality of production can only result in disaster
to the nation, and, most of all, to the workers themselves. In
numerous instances the factory Soviets had called back the owners they
had forced out, and the managers and technical directors they had
dismissed, and restored the authority of foremen. In other words, they
ceased to be controlling authorities and became simply consultative
bodies. While, therefore, they were becoming valuable democratic
agencies, the economic power and influence of the Soviets was waning.

On the day of the _coup d’état_, November 7, 1917, the Bolshevist
Military Revolutionary Committee issued a special proclamation which
said, “The goal for which the people fought, the immediate proposal of
a democratic peace, the abolition of private landed property, _labor
control of industry_, the establishment of a Soviet Government--all
this is guaranteed.” Seven days later, November 14th, a decree was
issued, giving an outline of the manner in which the control of
industry by the Soviets was to be organized and carried out. The
principal features of this outline plan are set forth in the following
paragraphs:

(1) In order to put the economic life of the country on an
orderly basis, control by the workers is instituted over all
industrial, commercial, and agricultural undertakings and
societies; and those connected with banking and transport, as
well as over productive co-operative societies which employ
labor or put out work to be done at home or in connection with
the production, purchase, and sale of commodities and of raw
materials, and with conservation of such commodities as well as
regards the financial aspect of such undertakings.

(2) Control is exercised by all the workers of a given
enterprise through the medium of their elected organs, such
as factories and works committees, councils of workmen’s
delegates, etc., such organs equally comprising representatives
of the employees and of the technical staff.

(3) In each important industrial town, province, or district
is set up a local workmen’s organ of control, which, being the
organ of the soldiers’, workmen’s, and peasants’ council, will
comprise the representatives of the labor unions, workmen’s
committees, and of any other factories, as well as of workmen’s
co-operative societies.

* * * * *

(5) Side by side with the Workmen’s Supreme Council of the
Labor Unions, committees of inspection comprising technical
specialists, accountants, etc. These committees, both on their
own initiative or at the request of local workmen’s organs of
control, proceed to a given locality to study the financial and
technical side of any enterprise.

(6) The Workmen’s Organs of Control have the right to supervise
production, to fix a minimum wage in any undertaking, and to
take steps to fix the prices at which manufactured articles are
to be sold.

(7) The Workmen’s Organs of Control have the right to control
all correspondence passing in connection with the business
of an undertaking, being held responsible before a court of
justice for diverting their correspondence. Commercial secrets
are abolished. The owners are called upon to produce to the
Workmen’s Organs of Control all books and moneys in hand, both
relating to the current year and to any previous transactions.

(8) The decisions of the Workmen’s Organs of Control are
binding upon the owners of undertakings, and cannot be
nullified save by the decision of a Workmen’s Superior Organ of
Control.

(9) Three days are given to the owners, or the administrators
of a business, to appeal to a Workmen’s Superior Court of
Control against the decisions filed by any of the lower organs
of Workmen’s Control.

(10) In all undertakings, the owners and the representatives
of workmen and of employees delegated to exercise control
on behalf of the workmen, are responsible to the government
for the maintenance of strict order and discipline, and
for the conservation of property (goods). Those guilty of
misappropriating materials and products, of not keeping books
properly, and of similar offenses, are liable to prosecution.

* * * * *

It was not until December 27, 1917--seven weeks after their arbitrary
seizure of the reins of government--that the Bolsheviki published the
details of their scheme. Both the original preliminary outline and the
later carefully elaborated scheme made it quite evident that, no matter
how loudly and grandiloquently Lenin, Trotsky, Miliutin, Smedevich,
and others might talk about the “introduction” of workers’ control, in
point of fact they were only thinking of giving a certain legal status
to the Soviet system of control already in operation. That system, as
we have already seen, had been in their hands for some time. They had
used it to destroy efficiency, to cripple the factories and assist
in paralyzing the government and the military forces of the nation.
Now that they were no longer an opposition party trying to upset
the government, but were themselves the _de facto_ government, the
Bolsheviki could no longer afford to pursue the policy of encouraging
the factory Soviets to sabotage. Maximum production was the first
necessity of the Bolshevist Government, quite as truly as it had been
for the Provisional Government, and as it must have been for any other
government. Sabotage in the factories had been an important means of
combating the Provisional Government, but now it must be quickly
eliminated. So long as they were in the position of being a party of
revolt the Bolshevist leaders were ready to approve the seizure of
factories by the workers, regardless of the consequences to industrial
production or to the military enterprises dependent upon that
production. As the governing power of the nation, in full possession of
the machinery of government, such ruinous action by the workers could
not be tolerated. For the same reasons, the demoralization of the army,
which they had laboriously fostered, must now be arrested.

In the instructions to the All-Russian Council of Workers’ Control,
published December 27, 1917, we find no important _extension_ of
the existing Soviet control; we do, however, find its _legalization
with important limitations_. These limitations, moreover, are merely
legalistic formulations of the modifications already developed in
practice and obtaining in many factories. A comparison of the full
text of the instructions with the account of the system of factory
control under the Provisional Government will demonstrate this beyond
doubt.[29] The control in each enterprise is to be organized “either
by the Shop or Factory Committee or by the General Assembly of workers
and employees of the enterprise, who elect a Special Commission of
Control” (Article I). In “large-scale enterprises” the election of
such a Control Commission is compulsory. To the Commission of Control
is given sole authority to “enter into relations with the management
upon the subject of control,” though it may give authorization to other
workers to enter into such relations if it sees fit (Article III). The
Control Commission must make report to the general body of workers and
employees in the enterprise “at least twice a month” (Article IV). The
article (No. 5) which deals with and defines the “Duties and Privileges
of the Control Commission” is so elaborate that it is almost impossible
to summarize it without injustice. It is, therefore, well to quote it
in full.

[29] This important document is printed in full at the end of the book
as an Appendix.

V. The Control Commission of each enterprise is required:

1. To determine the stock of goods and fuel possessed by the
plant, and the amount of these needed respectively for the
machinery of production, the technical personnel, and the
laborers by specialties.

2. To determine to what extent the plant is provided with
everything that is necessary to insure its normal operation.

3. To forecast whether there is danger of the plant closing
down or lowering production, and what the causes are.

4. To determine the number of workers by specialties likely to
be unemployed, basing the estimate upon the reserve supply and
the expected receipts of fuel and materials.

5. _To determine the measures to be taken to maintain
discipline in work among the workers and employees._

6. To superintend the execution of the decisions of
governmental agencies regulating the buying and selling of
goods.

7. (_a_) _To prevent the arbitrary removal of machines,
materials, fuel, etc., from the plant without authorization
from the agencies which regulate economic affairs, and to see
that inventories are not tampered with._

(_b_) To assist in explaining the causes of the lowering of
production and to take measures for raising it.

8. To assist in elucidating the possibility of a complete or
partial utilization of the plant for some kind of production
(especially how to pass from a war to a peace footing, and
what kind of production should be undertaken), to determine
what changes should be made in the equipment of the plant and
in the number of its personnel, to accomplish this purpose; to
determine in what period of time these changes can be effected;
to determine what is necessary in order to make them, and the
probable amount of production after the change is made to
another kind of manufacture.

9. To aid in the study of the possibility of developing the
kinds of labor required by the necessities of peace-times,
such as the methods of using three shifts of workmen, or any
other method, by furnishing information on the possibilities of
housing the additional number of laborers and their families.

10. _To see that the production of the plant is maintained
at the figures to be fixed by the governmental regulating
agencies, and until such time as these figures shall have been
fixed to see that the production reaches the normal average for
the plant, judged by a standard of conscientious labor._

11. To co-operate in estimating costs of production of the
plant upon the demand of the higher agency of workers’ control
or upon the demand of the governmental regulating institutions.

It is expressly stipulated that only the owner has “the right to give
orders to the directors of the plant”; that the Control Commission
“does not participate in the management of the plant and has no
responsibility for its development and operation” (Article VII). It is
also definitely stated that the Control Commission has no concern with
financial management of the plant (Article VIII). Finally, while it
has the right to “recommend for the consideration of the governmental
regulating institutions the question of the sequestration of the plant
or other measures of constraint upon the plant,” the Control Commission
“has not the right to seize and direct the enterprise” (Article IX).
These are the principal clauses of this remarkable document relating
to the functions and methods of the Soviet system of control in the
factory itself; other clauses deal with the relations of the factory
organizations to the central governmental authority and to the
trades-unions. They prescribe and define a most elaborate system of
bureaucracy.

So much for the _imperium in imperio_ of the Soviet system of
industrial control conceived by the Bolsheviki. In many important
respects it is much more conservative than the system itself had
been under Kerensky. It gives legal form and force to those very
modifications which had been brought about, and it specifically
prohibits the very abuses the Bolshevist agitators had fostered and
the elimination of which they had everywhere bitterly resisted.
Practically every provision in the elaborate decree of instructions
limiting the authority of the workers, defining the rights of the
managers, insisting upon the maintenance of production, and the like,
the Kerensky government had endeavored to introduce, being opposed
and denounced therefor by the Bolsheviki. It is easy to imagine how
bitterly that decree of instructions on Workers’ Control would have
been denounced by Lenin and Trotsky had it been issued by Kerensky’s
Cabinet in July or August.

Let us not make the mistake, however, of assuming that because the
Bolsheviki in power thus sought to improve the system of industrial
control, to purge it of its weaknesses--its reckless lawlessness,
sabotage, tyranny, dishonesty, and incompetence--that there was
actually a corresponding improvement in the system itself. The
pro-Bolshevist writers in this country and in western Europe have
pointed to these instructions, and to many other decrees conceived in
a similar spirit and couched in a similar tone, as conclusive evidence
of moderation, constructive statesmanship, and wise intention. Alas!
in statesmanship good intention is of little value. In politics and
social polity, as in life generally, the road to destruction is paved
with “good intentions.” The Lenins and Trotskys, who in opposition and
revolt were filled with the fury of destruction, might be capable of
becoming builders under the influence of a solemn recognition of the
obligations of authority and power. But for the masses of the people
no such change was possible. Such miracles do not happen, except in
the disordered imaginations of those whose minds are afflicted with
moral Daltonism and that incapacity for sequential thinking which
characterizes such a wide variety of subnormal mentalities.

By their propaganda the Bolsheviki had fostered an extremely
anti-social consciousness, embracing sabotage, lawlessness, and narrow
selfishness; the manner in which they had seized the governmental
power, and brutally frustrated the achievement of that great democratic
purpose which had behind it the greatest collective spiritual impulse
in the history of the nation, greatly intensified that anti-social
consciousness. Now that they were in power these madmen hoped that
in the twinkling of an eye, by the mere issuance of decrees and
manifestoes, they could eradicate the evil thing. Canute’s command to
the tide was not one whit more vain than their verbose decrees hurled
against the relentless and irresistible sequence of cause and effect.
Loafing, waste, disorder, and sabotage continued in the factories,
as great a burden to the Bolshevist oligarchs as they had been to
the democrats. Workers continued to “seize” factories as before, and
production steadily declined to the music of an insatiable demand
on the part of the workers for more pay. There was no change in the
situation, except in so far as it grew worse. The governmental machine
grew until it became like an immense swarm of devastating locusts,
devouring everything and producing nothing. History does not furnish
another such record of industrial chaos and ruinous inefficiency.

Five days after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviki, the Commissar
of Labor, Shliapnikov, issued a protest against sabotage and violence.
Naturally, he ascribed the excesses of the workers to provocation by
the propertied classes. That “proletarian consciousness” upon which
the Bolsheviki based their faith must have been sadly lacking in the
workers if, at such a time, they were susceptible to the influence of
the “propertied classes.” The fact is that the destructive anarchical
spirit they had fostered was now a deadly menace to the Bolsheviki
themselves. Shliapnikov wrote:

The propertied classes are endeavoring to create anarchy and
the ruin of industry by provoking the workmen to excesses
and violence over the question of foremen, technicians, and
engineers. They hope thereby to achieve the complete and
final ruin of all the mills and factories. The revolutionary
Commission of Labor asks you, our worker-comrades, to abstain
from all acts of violence and excess. By a joint and creative
work of the laboring masses and proletarian organizations, the
Commission of Labor will know how to surmount all obstacles
in its way. The new revolutionary government will apply the
most drastic measures against all industrials and those who
continue to sabotage industry, and thereby prevent the carrying
out of the tasks and aims of the great proletarian and peasant
Revolution. Executions without trial and other arbitrary acts
will only damage the cause of the Revolution. The Commission
of Labor calls on you for self-control and revolutionary
discipline.

In January, 1918, Lenin read to a gathering of party workers a
characteristic series of numbered “theses,” which _Izvestia_ published
on March 8th of that year. In that document he said:

1. The situation of the Russian Revolution at the present
moment is such that almost all workmen and the overwhelming
majority of the peasants undoubtedly are on the side of the
Soviet authority, and of the social revolution started by it.
To that extent the success of the socialistic revolution in
Russia is guaranteed.

2. At the same time the civil war, caused by the frantic
resistance of the propertied classes which understand very well
that they are facing the last and decisive struggle to preserve
private property in land, and in the means of production, has
not as yet reached its highest point. The victory of the Soviet
authority in this war is guaranteed, but inevitably some time
yet must pass, inevitably a considerable exertion of strength
will be required, a certain period of acute disorganization and
chaos, which always attend any war and in particular a civil
war, is inevitable, before the resistance of the bourgeoisie
will be crushed.

3. Further, this resistance takes less and less active and
non-military forms: sabotage, bribing beggars, bribing agents
of the bourgeoisie who have pushed themselves into the ranks
of the Socialists in order to ruin the latter’s cause, etc.
This resistance has proved stubborn, and capable of assuming
so many different forms, that the struggle against it will
inevitably drag along for a certain period, and will probably
not be finished in its main aspects before several months. And
without a decisive victory over this passive and concealed
resistance of the bourgeoisie and its champions, the success of
the socialistic revolution is impossible.

4. Finally, the organizing tasks of the socialistic
reorganization of Russia are so enormous and difficult that a
rather prolonged period of time is also required to solve them,
in view of the large number of petty bourgeois fellow-travelers
of the socialistic proletariat, and of the latter’s low
cultural level.

5. All these circumstances taken together are such that from
them result _the necessity, for the success of Socialism in
Russia, of a certain interval of time, not less than a few
months_, in the course of which the socialistic government must
have its hands absolutely free, in order to triumph over the
bourgeoisie, first of all in its own country, and in order to
adopt broad and deep organizing activity.

The greatest significance of Lenin’s words lies in their recognition
of the seriousness of the non-military forms of resistance, sabotage,
and the like, and of the “low cultural level” of the “socialistic
proletariat.” Reading the foregoing statements carefully and
remembering Lenin’s other utterances, both before and after, we
are compelled to wonder whether he is intellectually dishonest, an
unscrupulous trickster playing upon the credulity of his followers,
or merely a loose thinker adrift and helpless on the swift tides of
events. “For the success of Socialism ... not less than _a few months_”
we read from the pen of the man who, in June of the previous year,
while on his way from Switzerland, had written “Socialism cannot now
prevail in Russia”; the same man who in May, 1918, was to tell his
comrades “it is hardly to be expected that the even more developed
coming generation will accomplish a complete transition to Socialism”;
who later told Raymond Robins: “The Russian Revolution will probably
fail. We have not developed far enough in the capitalist stage, we are
too primitive to realize the Socialist state.”[30]

[30] _Vide_ testimony of Robins before U. S. Senate Committee.

And yet--“the success of Socialism ... not less than a few months!”

By the latter part of February, 1918, it was quite clear that the
Soviet control of industry was “killing the goose that laid the golden
eggs”; that it was ruining the industrial life of the nation. The
official press began to discuss in the most serious manner the alarming
decline in production and the staggering financial losses incurred in
the operation of what formerly had been profitable enterprises. At the
Extraordinary Congress of Soviets, in March, 1918, the seriousness of
the situation caused great alarm and a desperate appeal was made to the
workers to increase production, refrain from sabotage, and practise
self-discipline. The congress urged “a merciless struggle against chaos
and disorganization.” Lenin himself pointed out that confiscation of
factories by the workers was ruining Russia. The very policy they had
urged upon the workers, the seizure of the factories, was now seen as a
menace.

On April 28, 1918, Lenin said: “If we are to expropriate at this
pace, we shall be certain to suffer a defeat. The organization of
production under proletarian control is notoriously very much behind
the expropriation of big masses of capital.”[31] He had already come to
realize that the task of transforming capitalist society to a Socialist
society was not the easy matter he had believed shortly before. In
September he had looked upon the task of realizing Socialism as a child
might have done. It would require a Freudian expert to explain the
silly childishness of this paragraph from _The State and Revolution_,
published in September, 1917:

[31] _Soviets at Work._ I have quoted the passage as it appears in the
English edition of Kautsky’s _Dictatorship of the Proletariat_, p.
125. This rendering, which conforms to the French translations of the
authorized text, is clearer and stronger than the version given in the
confessedly “improved” version of Lenin’s speech by Doctor Dubrovsky,
published by the Rand School of Social Science.

Capitalist culture has created industry on a large scale in
the shape of factories, railways, posts, telephones, and so
forth; and on this basis the great majority of the functions
of the old state have become enormously simplified and reduced
in practice to very simple operations, such as registration,
filing, and checking. Hence they will be quite within the reach
of every literate person, and it will be possible to perform
them for the usual “working-man’s wages.”[32]

[32] _The State and Revolution_, by N. Lenin, p. 12.

Thus it was in September, before the overthrow of the Provisional
Government. Then Lenin was at the head of a revolting faction and
presented the task of reorganizing the state as very simple indeed.
In April he was at the head of a government, confronted by realities,
and emphasizing the enormous difficulty and complexity of the task of
reorganization. _The Soviets at Work_ and the later booklet, _The Chief
Tasks of Our Times_, lay great emphasis upon the great difficulties to
be overcome, the need of experienced and trained men, and the folly
of expecting anything like immediate success. “We know all about
Socialism,” he said, “but we do not know how to organize on a large
scale, how to manage distribution, and so on. The old Bolshevist
leaders have not taught us these things, and this is not to the credit
of our party.”[33]

[33] _The Chief Tasks of Our Times_, p. 12.

The same man who had urged the workers to “take possession of
the factories” now realized how utterly unfitted the mass of the
workers must be for undertaking the management of modern industrial
establishments:

To every deputation of workers which has come to me complaining
that a factory was stopping work, I have said, “If you desire
the confiscation of your factory the decree forms are ready,
and I can sign a decree at once. But tell me: Can you take
over the management of the concern? Have you reckoned what
you can produce? Do you know the relations of your work with
Russian and foreign markets?” Then it has appeared that they
are inexperienced in these matters; that there is nothing
about them in the Bolshevist literature, in the Menshevist,
either.[34]

[34] _Idem_, p. 12.

Lenin and his associates had been brought face to face with a condition
which many Marxian Socialist writers had foreseen was likely to exist,
not only in Russia, but in far more highly developed industrial
nations, namely, a dangerous decline of production and of the average
productivity of the workers, instead of the enormous increase which
must be attained before any of the promises of Socialism could be
redeemed. A few figures from official Bolshevist sources will serve
to illustrate the seriousness of the decline in production. The great
Soromovo Works had produced fifteen locomotives monthly, even during
the last months of the Kerensky régime. By the end of April, 1918, it
was pointed out, the output was barely two per month. At the Mytishchy
Works in Moscow, the production, as compared with 1916, was only 40 per
cent. At this time the Donetz Basin was held by the Bolsheviki. The
average monthly output in the coal-fields of this important territory
prior to the arrival of the Bolsheviki was 125,000,000 poods. The
rule of the Bolsheviki was marked by a serious and continuous decline
in production, dropping almost at once to 80,000,000 poods and then
steadily declining, month by month, until in April-May, 1918, it
reached the low level of 26,000,000 poods.[35] When the Bolsheviki were
driven away, the production rose month by month, until, in December,
1918, it had reached 40,000,000 poods. Then the Bolsheviki won control
once more and came back, and at once production declined with great
swiftness, soon getting down to 24,000,000 poods.[36] These figures, be
it remembered, are official Bolshevist figures.

[35] _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, May 6, 1919.

[36] _Idem._

So serious was the decline of production in every department that a
commission was appointed to investigate the matter. The commission
reported in January, 1919, and from its report the following facts
are quoted: in the Moscow railway workshops the number of workmen in
1916 was 1,192; in 1917 the number was 1,179; in 1918 it was 1,772--an
increase of 50 per cent. The number of holidays and “off days” rose
from 6 per cent. in 1916 to 12 per cent. in 1917 and 39.5 per cent. in
1918. At the same time, each car turned out per month represented the
labor of 3.35 men in 1918 as against 1 in 1917 and .44 in 1916. In the
Mytishchy Works, Moscow, the loss of production was enormous. Taking
the eight-hour day as a basis, and counting as 100 the production of
1916, the production in 1917 amounted to 75, and only 40 in 1918. In
the coal-mines of the Moscow region the fall of labor productivity was
equally marked. The normal production per man is given as 750 poods
per month. In 1916 the production was 614 poods; in 1917 it was 448
poods, and in 1918 it was only 242 poods. In the textile industries the
decline in productivity was 35 per cent., including the flax industry,
which does not depend upon the importation of raw materials.[37] In the
Scherbatchev factory the per-capita production of calico was 68 per
cent, lower than in 1917, according to the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No.
50).

[37] For most of the statistical data in this chapter I am indebted to
Prof. V. I. Issaiev, whose careful analyses of the statistical reports
of the Soviet Government are of very great value to all students of the
subject.--AUTHOR.

It is not necessary to quote additional statistics from the report of
the investigating commission. The figures cited are entirely typical.
The report as a whole reveals that there not only had been no arrest
of the serious decline of the year 1917, but _an additional decline at
an accelerated rate_, and that the condition was general throughout
all branches of industry. The report attributes this serious condition
partly to loss of efficiency in the workers due to under-nutrition, but
more particularly to the mistaken conception of freedom held by the
workers, their irresponsibility and indifference; to administrative
chaos arising from inefficiency; and, finally, the enormous amount of
time lost in holding meetings and elections and in endless committees.
In general this report confirms the accounts furnished by the agent of
the governments of Great Britain and the United States of America and
published by them,[38] as well as reports made by well-known European
Socialists.

[38] See the British _White Book_ and the _Memorandum on Certain
Aspects of the Bolshevist Movement in Russia_, presented to the Foreign
Relations Committee of the U. S. Senate by Secretary of State Lansing,
January 5, 1920.

As early as April, 1918, Lenin and other Bolshevist leaders had taken
cognizance of the enormous loss of time consumed by the innumerable
meetings which Soviet control of industry involved. Lenin claimed, with
much good reason, that much of this wasteful talking was the natural
reaction of men who had been repressed too long, though his argument is
somewhat weakened by the fact that there had been eight months of such
talk before the Bolshevist régime began:

The habit of holding meetings is ridiculed, and more often
wrathfully hissed at by the bourgeoisie, Mensheviks, etc.,
who see only chaos, senseless bustle, and outbursts of petty
bourgeoisie egoism. But without the “holding of meetings” the
oppressed masses could never pass from the discipline forced
by the exploiters to conscious and voluntary discipline.
“Meeting-holding” is the real democracy of the toilers, their
straightening out, their awakening to a new life, their
first steps on the field which they themselves have cleared
of reptiles (exploiters, imperialists, landed proprietors,
capitalists), and which they want to learn to put in order
themselves in their own way; for themselves, in accord with
the principles of their, “Soviet,” rule, and not the rule of
the foreigners, of the nobility and bourgeoisie. The November
victory of the toilers against the exploiters was necessary; it
was necessary to have a whole period of elementary discussion
by the toilers themselves of the new conditions of life and
of the new problems to make possible _a secure transition to
higher forms of labor discipline, to a conscious assimilation
of the idea of the necessity of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, to absolute submission to the personal orders of
the representatives of the Soviet rule during work_.[39]

[39] _The Soviets at Work_, p. 37.

There is a very characteristic touch of Machiavellian artistry in this
reference to “a secure transition to higher forms of labor discipline,”
in which there is to be “absolute submission to the personal orders
of the representatives of the Soviet rule during work.” The eloquent
apologia for the Soviet system of industrial control by the workers
carries the announcement of the liquidation of that system. It is to
be replaced by some “higher forms of labor discipline,” forms which
will not attempt the impossible task of conducting factories on
“debating-society lines.” The “petty bourgeois tendency to turn the
members of the Soviets into ‘parliamentarians,’ or, on the other hand,
into bureaucrats,” is to be combated. In many places the departments
of the Soviets are turning “into organs which gradually merge with the
commissariats”--in other words, are ceasing to function as governing
bodies in the factories. There is a difficult transition to be made
which alone will make possible “the definite realization of Socialism,”
and that is to put an end to the wastefulness arising from the attempt
to combine the discussion and solution of political problems with work
in the factories. There must be a return to the system of uninterrupted
work for so many hours, with politics after working-hours. That is
what is meant by the statement: “It is our object to obtain _the free
performance of state obligations by every toiler after he is through
with his eight-hour session of productive work_.”

Admirable wisdom! Saul among the prophets at last! The romancer turns
realist! But this program cannot be carried out without making of
the elaborate system of workers’ control a wreck, a thing of shreds
and patches. Away goes the Utopian combination of factory and forum,
in which the dynamos are stilled when there are speeches to be
made--pathetic travesty of industry and government both. The toiler
must learn that his “state obligations” are to be performed after the
day’s work is done, and not in working-time at the expense of the
pay-roll. More than this, it is necessary to place every factory under
the absolute dictatorship of one person:

Every large machine industry requires an absolute and strict
unity of the will which directs the joint work of hundreds,
thousands, and tens of thousands of people.... But how can
we secure a strict unity of will? By subjecting the will of
thousands to the will of one.[40]

[40] _The Soviets at Work._

If the workers are properly submissive, if they are “ideally conscious
and disciplined,” this dictatorship may be a very mild affair;
otherwise it will be stern and harsh:

There is a lack of appreciation of the simple and obvious
fact that, if the chief misfortunes of Russia are famine and
unemployment, these misfortunes cannot be overcome by any
outbursts of enthusiasm, but only by thorough and universal
organization of discipline, in order to increase the production
of bread for men and fuel for industry, to transport it in
time, and to distribute it in the right way. That, therefore,
responsibility for the pangs of famine and unemployment
falls on _every one who violates the labor discipline in any
enterprise and in any business_. That those who are responsible
should be discovered, tried, and _punished without mercy_.[41]

[41] _Idem._

Not only must the workers abandon their crude conception of industrial
democracy as requiring the abolition of individual authority, but
they must also abandon the notion that in the management of industry
one man is as good as another. They must learn that experts are
necessary:[42] “Without the direction of specialists of different
branches of knowledge, technique, and experience, the transformation
toward Socialism is impossible.” Although it is a defection from
proletarian principles, a compromise, “a step backward by our Socialist
Soviet state,” it is necessary to “make use of the old bourgeois
method and agree to a very high remuneration for the biggest of the
bourgeois specialists.” The proletarian principles must still further
be compromised and the payment of time wages on the basis of equal
remuneration for all workers must give place to payment according to
performance; piece-work must be adopted. Finally, the Taylor system of
scientific management must be introduced: “The possibility of Socialism
will be determined by our success in combining the Soviet rule and
Soviet organization of management with the latest progressive measures
of capitalism. _We must introduce in Russia the study and the teaching
of the Taylor system, and its systematic trial and adaptation._”[43]

[42] A much later statement of Lenin’s view is contained in this
paragraph from a speech by him on March 17, 1920. The quotation is from
_Soviet Russia_, official organ of the Russian Soviet Government Bureau
in the United States:

“Every form of administrative work requires specific
qualifications. One may be the best revolutionist and agitator
and yet useless as an administrator. It is important that
those who manage industries be completely competent, and be
acquainted with all technical conditions within the industry.
We are not opposed to the management of industries by the
workers. _But we point out that the solution of the question
must be subordinate to the interests of the industry._
Therefore the question of the management of industry must
be regarded from a business standpoint. The industry must
be managed with the least possible waste of energy, and the
managers of the industry must be efficient men, whether they be
specialists or workers.”

[43] _The Soviets at Work._

In all this there is much that is fine and admirable, but it is in
direct and fundamental opposition to the whole conception of industrial
control by factory Soviets. No thoughtful person can read and compare
the elaborate provisions of the Instructions on Workers’ Control,
already summarized, and Lenin’s _Soviets at Work_ without reaching the
conclusion that the adoption of the proposals contained in the latter
absolutely destroys the former. The end of the Soviet as a proletarian
industry-directing instrument was already in sight.

Bolshevism was about to enter upon a new phase. What the general
character of that phase would be was quite clear. It had already
been determined and Lenin’s task was to justify what was in reality
a reversal of policy. The essential characteristics of the Soviet
system in industry, having proved to be useless impedimenta, were to be
discarded, and, in like manner, anti-Statism was to be exchanged for an
exaggerated Statism. In February, 1918, the Bolshevist rulers of Russia
were confronted by a grave menace, an evil inherent in Syndicalism in
all its variant forms, including Bolshevism--namely, the assertion
of exorbitant demands by workers employed in performing services of
immediate and vital importance in the so-called “key industries.”
Although the railway workers were only carrying the Bolshevist theories
into practice, acquiescence in their demands would have placed the
whole industrial life of Russia under their domination. Instead of a
dictatorship of the proletariat, there would have been dictatorship
by a single occupational group. Faced by this danger, the Bolshevist
Government did not hesitate to nationalize the railways and place them
under an absolute dictator, responsible, not to the railway workers,
but to the central Soviet authority, the government. Wages, hours of
labor, and working conditions were no longer subject to the decision of
the railway workers’ councils, but were determined by the dictators
appointed by the state. The railway workers’ unions were no longer
recognized, and the right to strike was denied and strikes declared
to be treason against the state. The railway workers’ councils were
not abolished at first, but were reduced to a nominal existence as
“consultative bodies,” which in practice were not consulted. Here was
the apotheosis of the state: the new policy could not be restricted
to railways; nationalization of industry, under state direction, was
to take the place of the direction of industry by autonomous workers’
councils.

In May, 1918, Commissar of Finances Gukovsky, staggered by the enormous
loss incurred upon every hand, in his report to the Congress of
Soviets called attention to the situation. He said that the railway
system, the arterial system of the industrial life of the nation, was
completely disorganized and demoralized. Freight-tonnage capacity had
decreased by 70 per cent., while operating expenses had increased 150
per cent. Whereas before the war operating expenses were 11,579 rubles
per verst, in May, 1918, _wages alone_ amounted to 80,000 rubles per
verst, the total working expenses being not less than 120,000 rubles
per verst. A similar state of demoralization obtained, said Gukovsky,
in the nationalized marine transportation service. In every department
of industry, according to this highly competent authority, waste,
inefficiency, idleness, and extravagance prevailed. He called attention
to the swollen salary-list; the army of paid officials. Already the
menace of what soon developed into a formidable bureaucracy was seen:
“The machinery of the old régime has been preserved, the ministries
remain, and parallel with them Soviets have arisen--provincial,
district, volost, and so forth.”

In June, 1918, after the railways had been nationalized for some time,
Kobozev, Bolshevist Commissar of Communications, said: “The eight-hour
workday and the payment per hour have definitely disorganized the whole
politically ignorant masses, who understand these slogans, not as an
appeal to the most productive efficiency of a free citizen, but as a
right to idleness unjustified by any technical means. _Whole powerful
railway workshops give a daily disgraceful exhibition of inactivity_ on
the principle of ‘Why should I work when my neighbor is paid by time
for doing no work at all?’”

Although nationalization of industry had been decided upon in February,
and a comprehensive plan for the administration and regulation of
nationalized enterprises had been published in March, promulgated as a
decree, with instructions that it must be enforced by the end of May,
it was not until July that the Soviet Government really decided upon
its enforcement. It should be said, however, that a good many factories
were nationalized between April and July. Many factories were actually
abandoned by their owners and directors, and had to be taken over. Many
others were just taken in an “irregular manner” by the workers, who
continued their independent confiscations. For this there was indeed
some sort of authority in the decree of March, 1918.[44] Transportation
had broken down, and there was a lack of raw materials. It was
officially reported that in May there were more than 250,000 unemployed
workmen in Moscow alone. No less than 224 machine-shops, which had
employed an aggregate of 120,000 men, were closed. Thirty-six textile
factories, employing a total of 136,000 operatives, were likewise idle.
To avert revolt, it was necessary to keep these unemployed workers
upon the pay-roll. Under czarism the policy of subsidizing industrial
establishments out of the government revenues had been very extensively
developed. This policy was continued by the Provisional Government
under Kerensky and by the Bolsheviki in their turn. Naturally, with
industry so completely disorganized, this led toward bankruptcy at a
rapid rate. The following extract from Gukovsky’s report to the Central
Executive Committee in May requires no elucidation:

[44] See text of the decree--Appendix.

Our Budget has reached the astronomical figures of from 80 to
100 billions of rubles. No revenue can cover such expenditure.
Our revenue for the half-year reaches approximately
3,294,000,000 rubles. It is exceedingly difficult to find a
way of escape out of this situation. The repudiation of state
loans played a very unfavorable part in this respect, as now
it is impossible to borrow money--no one will lend. Formerly
railways used to yield a revenue, and agriculture likewise. Now
agriculturists refuse to export their produce, they are feeding
better and hoarding money. The former apparatus--in the shape
of a Government Spirit Monopoly and rural police officers--no
longer exists. Only one thing remains to be done--to issue
paper money _ad infinitum_. But soon we shall not be able to do
even this.

At the Congress of the Soviets of People’s Economy in May, Rykov, the
president of the Superior Council of the National Board of Economy,
reported, concerning the nationalization of industries, that so far
it had been carried out without regard to industrial economy or
efficiency, but exclusively from the point of view of successfully
struggling against the bourgeoisie. It was, therefore, a war measure,
and must not be judged by ordinary economic standards. Miliutin,
another Bolshevist Commissar, declared that “nationalization bore a
punitive character.” It was pointed out by Gostev, another Bolshevist
official, that it had been carried out against the wishes of many of
the workers themselves quite as much as against the wishes of the
bourgeoisie. “I must laugh when they speak of bourgeois sabotage,”
he said. “_We have a national people’s and proletarian sabotage. We
are met with enormous opposition from the labor masses when we start
standardizing._” For good or ill, however, and despite all opposition,
Bolshevism had turned to nationalization and to the erection of a
powerful and highly centralized state. What the results of that policy
were we shall see.

THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY--I

To judge fairly and wisely the success or failure of an economic and
political policy so fundamental and far-reaching as the nationalization
of industry we must discard theories altogether and rely wholly upon
facts. Nothing could be easier than to formulate theoretical arguments
of great plausibility and force, either in support of the state
ownership of industries and their direction by state agencies or in
opposition to such a policy. Interesting such theorizing may be, but
nothing can be conclusively determined by it. When we come to deal with
the case of a country where, as in Russia, nationalization of industry
has been tried upon quite a large scale, there is only one criterion to
apply, namely, its relative success as compared with other methods of
industrial organization and management in the same or like conditions.
If nationalization and state direction can be shown to have brought
about greater advantage than other forms of industrial ownership and
control, then nationalization is justified by that result; if, on the
other hand, its advantages are demonstrably less, it must be judged a
failure.

Whether the nationalization of industry by the Bolshevist Government
of Russia was a sound policy, wisely conceived and carried out with a
reasonable degree of efficiency, can be determined with a fair approach
to certainty and finality. Our opinions concerning Karl Marx’s theory
of the economic motivation of social evolution, or Lenin’s ability
and character, or the methods by which the Bolsheviki obtained power,
are absolutely irrelevant and inconsequential. History will base its
estimate of Bolshevism, not upon the evidence of the terrorism which
attended it, ample and incontestable as that evidence may be, but upon
its success or failure in solving the great economic problems which
it set out to solve. Our judgment of the nationalization of industry
must not be warped by our resentment of those features of Bolshevist
rule which established its tyrannical character. The ample testimony
furnished by the official journals published by the Bolshevist
Government and the Communist Party enables us to visualize with great
clearness the conditions prevailing in Russia before nationalization
of industry was resorted to. We have seen that there was an alarming
shortage of production, a ruinous excess of cost per unit of
production, a great deal of inefficiency and waste, together with a
marked increase in the number of salaried administrative officials.
We have seen that during the period of industrial organization and
direction by the autonomous organizations of the workers in the
factories these evils grew to menacing proportions. It was to remedy
these evils that nationalization was resorted to. If, therefore, we
can obtain definite and authoritative answers to certain questions
which inevitably suggest themselves, we shall be in a position to
judge the merits of nationalization, not as a general policy, for all
times and places, but as a policy for Russia in the circumstances
and conditions prevailing when it was undertaken. The questions
suggest themselves: Was there any increase in the total volume of
production? Was the average per-capita production raised or lowered?
Did the new methods result in lessening the excessive average cost
per unit of production? Was there any perceptible marked increase in
efficiency? Finally, did nationalization lessen the number of salaried
administrative officials or did it have a contrary effect?

We are not concerned with opinions here, but only with such definite
facts as are to be had. The replies to our questions are to be found
in the mass of statistical data which the Bolsheviki have published.
We are not compelled to rely upon anybody’s opinions or observations;
the numerous reports published by the responsible officials of the
Bolshevist Government, and by their official press, contain an
abundance of statistical evidence affording adequate and reliable
answer to each of the questions we have asked.

Because the railways were nationalized first, and because of their
vital importance to the general economic life of the nation, let us
consider how the nationalization of railroad transportation worked out.
The following table is taken from the report of the Commissar of Ways
and Communications:

Working
Gross Working Expenses Wages and Profit and
Year Receipts Expenses per Verst Salaries Loss
(rubles) (rubles) (rubles) (rubles) (rubles)

1916 1,350,000,000 1,210,000,000 1,700 650,000,000 +140,000,000
1917 1,400,000,000 3,300,000,000 46,000 2,300,000,000 -1,900,000,000
1918 1,500,000,000 9,500,000,000 44,000 8,000,000,000 -8,000,000,000

These figures indicate that the nationalization of railways during
the nine months of 1918 was characterized by a condition which no
country in the world could stand for a very long time. This official
table affords no scintilla of a suggestion that nationalization was
succeeding any better than the anarcho-Syndicalist management which
preceded it. The enormous increase in operating cost, the almost
stationary receipts, and the resulting colossal deficit require no
comment. At least on the financial side the nationalization policy
cannot be said to have been a success, a fact which was frankly
admitted by the _Severnaya Communa_, March 26, 1919. To see a profit
of 140 million rubles transformed into a loss of 8 billion rubles is
surely a serious matter.

Let us, however, adopt another test than that of finance, namely, the
service test, and see whether that presents us with a more favorable
result: According to the official report of the Commissar of Ways and
Communications, there were in operation on October 1, 1917--that is,
shortly before the Bolshevist _coup d’état_--52,597 versts[45] of
railroad line in operation; on October 1, 1918, there were in operation
21,800 versts, a decrease of 30,797. On October 1, 1917, there were in
working order 15,732 locomotives; on October 1, 1918, the number had
dwindled to 5,037, a decrease of 10,695. On October 1, 1917, the number
of freight cars in working condition was 521,591; on October 1, 1918,
the number was 227,274, a decrease of 294,317.

[45] One verst equals .663 mile, roughly, about two-thirds of a mile.

The picture presented by these figures is, for one who knows the
economic conditions in Russia, simply appalling. At its best the
Russian railway system was wholly inadequate to serve the economic
life of the nation. The foregoing official figures indicate an utter
collapse of the railways at a time when the nation needed an efficient
railroad transportation system more than at any time in its history.
One of the reasons for the collapse of the railway system was the
failure of the fuel supply. In northern and central Russia wood is
generally used for fuel in the factories and on the railways. Difficult
as it might be for them to maintain the supply of coal under the
extraordinary conditions prevailing, it would seem that with enormous
forests at their disposal, so near at hand, they would have found it
relatively easy to supply the railways with wood for fuel purposes. Yet
nowhere in the whole range of the industrial system of Russia was the
failure more disastrous or more complete than here. According to an
official estimate, the amount of wood fuel required for the railways
from May 1, 1918, to May 1, 1919, estimated upon the basis of “famine
rations,” was 4,954,000 cubic sazhens,[46] of which 858,000 cubic
sazhens was on hand, leaving 4,096,000 cubic sazhens as the amount to
be provided. A report published in the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No.
41) stated that not more than 18 per cent. of the total amount of wood
required was felled, and that not more than one-third of that amount
was actually delivered to the railways. In other words, 82 per cent.
of the wood fuel was not cut at all, at least so far as the particular
economic body whose business it was to provide the wood was concerned.
Extraordinary measures had to be taken to secure the fuel. From
_Economicheskaya Zhizn_, February 22, 1919, we learn that the railway
administration managed to secure fuel wood amounting to 70 per cent. of
its requirements, and the People’s Superior Economic Council another
2 per cent., a very large part of which had been secured by private
enterprise. If this last statement seems astonishing and anomalous,
it must be understood that as early as January 17, 1919, Lenin, as
President of the Central Soviet Government, promulgated a decree which
in a very large measure restored the right to private enterprise.
Already nationalization was being pronounced a failure by Lenin. In an
address announcing this remarkable modification of policy he said:

[46] One sazhen equals seven feet.

If each peasant would consent to reduce his consumption of
products to a point a little less than his needs and turn over
the remainder to the state, and if we were able to distribute
that remainder regularly, we could go on, assuring the
population a food-supply, insufficient, it is true, but enough
to avoid famine.

This last is, however, beyond our strength, due to our
disorganization. The people, exhausted by famine, show the most
extreme impatience. Assuredly, we have our food policy, but
the essential of it is that the decrees should be executed.
_Although they were promulgated long ago, the decrees relative
to the distribution of food products by the state never have
been executed because the peasants will sell nothing for paper
money._

It is better to tell the truth. _The conditions require that we
should pitilessly, relentlessly force our local organizations
to obey the central power._ This, again, is difficult because
millions of our inhabitants are accustomed to regard any
central power as an organization of exploiters and brigands.
They have no confidence in us and without confidence it is
impossible to institute an economic régime.

The crisis in food-supplies, aggravated by the breakdown of
transportation, explains the terrible situation that confronts
us. At Petrograd the condition of the transportation service is
desperate. The rolling-stock is unusable.

Another reason for the failure of the railways under nationalization
during the first year’s experimentation with that policy was the
demoralization of the labor force. The low standard of efficiency,
constant loafing, and idleness were factors in the problem. The
interference by the workers’ councils was even more serious. When
the railways were nationalized the elected committees of workers,
while shorn of much of their power, were retained as consultative
bodies, as we have already seen. Toward the end of 1918 the officials
responsible for the direction of the railroads found even that measure
of authority which remained to these councils incompatible with
efficient organization. Consequently, at the end of 1918 the abolition
of the workers’ committees of control was decreed and the dictatorial
powers of the railroad directors made absolute. The system of paying
wages by the day was replaced by a piece-work system, supplemented by
cash bonuses for special efficiency. Later on, as we shall see, these
changes were made applicable to all the nationalized industries. Thus,
the principal features of the capitalist wage system were brought back
to replace the communistic principles which had failed. When Lomov,
president of the Chief Forest Committee, declared, as reported in
_Izvestia_, June 4, 1919, that “proletarian principles must be set
aside and the services of private capitalistic apparatus made use of,”
he simply gave expression to what was already a very generally accepted
view.

The “return to capitalism,” as it was commonly and justly described,
had begun in earnest some months before Lomov made the declaration
just quoted. The movement was attended by a great deal of internal
conflict and dissension. In particular the trades-unions were incensed
because they were practically suppressed as autonomous organs of the
working-class. The dictatorship of the proletariat was already assuming
the character of a dictatorship over the proletariat by a strongly
centralized state. The rulers of this state, setting aside the written
Constitution, were in fact not responsible to any electorate. They
ruled by fiat and proclamation and ruthlessly suppressed all who sought
to oppose them. They held that, industry having become nationalized,
trades-unions were superfluous, and that strikes could not be tolerated
because they became, _ipso facto_, acts of treason against the state.
Such was the evolution of this anti-Statist movement.

The unions resisted the attempts to deprive them of their character
as fighting organizations. They protested against the denial of the
right to strike, the suppression of their meetings and their press.
They resented the arbitrary fixing of their wages by officials
of the central government. As a result, there was an epidemic of
strikes, most of which were suppressed with great promptitude and
brutality. At the Alexander Works, Moscow, eighty workers were killed
by machine-gun fire. From March 6 to 26, 1919, the _Krasnaya Gazeta_
published accounts of fifteen strikes in Petrograd, involving more
than half the wage-workers of the city, some of the strikes being
attended with violence which was suppressed by armed troops. At the
beginning of March there was such a strike at the Tula Works, reported
in _Izvestia_, March 2, 1919. On March 16, 1919, the _Severnaya
Communa_ gave an account of the strike at the famous Putilov Works,
and of the means taken to “clear out the Social Revolutionary
blackguards”--meaning thereby the striking workmen. _Pravda_ published
on March 23, 1919, accounts of serious strikes at the Putilov Works,
the Arthur Koppel Works, the government car-building shops, and
elsewhere. Despite a clearly defined policy on the part of the press
to ignore labor struggles as far as possible, sufficient was published
to show that there was an intense struggle by the Russian proletariat
against its self-constituted masters. “The workers of Petrograd are in
the throes of agitation, and strikes are occurring in some shops. The
Bolsheviki have been making arrests,” said _Izvestia_ on March 2, 1919.

Of course it may be fairly said that the strikes did not of themselves
indicate a condition of unrest and dissatisfaction peculiar to Russia.
That is quite true. There were strikes in many countries in the early
months of 1919. This fact does not, however, add anything to the
strength of the defense of the Bolshevist régime. In the capitalist
countries, where the struggle between the wage-earning and the
employing classes is a normal condition, strikes are very ordinary
phenomena. The Bolsheviki, in common with all other Socialists,
pointed to these conflicts as evidence of the unfitness of capitalism
to continue; and of the need for Socialism. It was the very essence
of their faith that in the Socialist state strikes would be unknown,
because no conflict of class interests would be possible. Yet here
in the Utopia of the Bolsheviki the proletarian dictatorship was
accompanied by strikes and lock-outs precisely like those common to
the capitalist system in all lands. _Moreover, while the nations which
still retained the capitalist system had their strikes, there was not
one of them in which such brutal methods of repression were resorted
to._ Russia was at war, we are told, and strikes were a deadly menace
to her very existence. But this argument, like the other, is of no
avail. England, France, Italy, and America on the one side, and Germany
and Austria upon the other side, all had strikes during the war, but in
no one of them were strikers shot down with such savage recklessness as
in Russia under the Bolsheviki.

Where and when in any of the great capitalist nations during the war
was there such a butchery of striking workmen as that at the Alexander
Works, already referred to? Where and when during the whole course of
the war did any capitalist government suppress a strike of workmen with
anything like the brutality with which the Bolshevist masters of Russia
suppressed the strike at the Putilov Works in March, 1919? At first the
marines in Petrograd were ordered to disperse the strikers and break
the strike, but they refused to obey the order. At a meeting these
marines decided that, rather than shoot down the striking workmen, they
would join forces with them. Then the Bolsheviki called out detachments
of coast guards, armed sailors from Kronstadt and Petrograd formerly
belonging to the “disciplinary battalions,” chiefly Letts. The strikers
put up an armed resistance, being supported in this by a small body of
soldiers. They were soon overcome, however, and the armed sailors took
possession of the works and summarily executed many of the strikers,
shooting them on the spot without even a drum-head court martial. The
authorities issued a proclamation--published in _Severnaya Communa_,
March 16, 1919--forbidding the holding of meetings and “inviting” the
strikers back to work:

All honest workmen desirous of carrying out the decision of
the Petrograd Soviet and ready to start work will be allowed
to go into the factory on condition that they forthwith go to
their places and take up their work. All those who begin work
will receive an additional ration of one-half pound of bread.
They who do not want to resume work will be at once discharged,
without receiving any concessions. A special commission will
be formed for the reorganization of the works. _No meetings
will be allowed to be held...._ For the last time the Petrograd
Soviet invites the Putilov workmen to expiate their crime
committed against the working-class and the peasantry of
Russia, and to cease at once their foolish strike.

On the following day this “invitation” was followed up by a typical
display of Bolshevist force. A detachment of armed sailors went to the
homes of the striking workmen and at the point of the bayonet drove the
men back into the works, about which a strong guard was placed. The
men were kept at work by armed guards placed at strategic positions in
the shops. All communication with the outside was strictly prohibited.
Numerous arrests were made. With grim irony the Bolshevist officials
posted in and around the shops placards explaining that, unlike
imperialistic and capitalistic governments, the Soviet authority had
no intention of suppressing strikes or insurrections by armed force.
For the good of the Revolution, however, and to meet the war needs, the
government would use every means at its command to force the workmen to
remain at their tasks and to prevent all demonstrations.

A bitter struggle took place between the trades-unions and the Soviet
Government. It was due, not to strikes merely, or even mainly, though
these naturally brought out its bitterest manifestations. The real
cause of the conflict was the fact that the government had thrown
communism to the winds and adopted a policy of state capitalism. All
the evils of capitalism in its relation to the workers reappeared,
intensified and exaggerated as an inevitable result of being
fundamental elements of the polity of an all-powerful state wholly
free from democratic control. The abolition of the right to strike;
the introduction of piece-work, augmented by a bonus system in place
of day wages; the arbitrary fixing of wages and working conditions;
the withdrawal of the powers which the workers’ councils, led by the
unions, had possessed since the beginning of the Revolution, and the
substitution for the crude spirit of democracy which inspired the
Soviet control of industry of the despotic principle of autocracy,
“absolute submission to the will of a single individual”--these things
inevitably evoked the active hostility of the organized workers. It was
from the proletariat, and from its most “class-conscious” elements,
that the Bolshevist régime received this determined resistance.

Many unions were suppressed altogether. This happened to the Teachers’
Union, which was declared to be “counter-revolutionary.”[47] It
happened also to the Printers’ Union. In this case the authorities
simply declared that all membership cards were invalid and that
the old officers were displaced. In order to work as a printer it
was necessary to get a new card of membership, and such cards were
only issued to those who signed declarations of loyalty to the
Bolshevist authority.[48] The trades-unions were made to conform to
the decisions of the Communist Party and subordinated to the rule of
the Commissaries. Upon this point there is a good deal of evidence
available, though most of it comes from non-Bolshevist sources. The
references to this important matter in the official Bolshevist press
are very meager and vague, and the Ransomes, Goodes, Malones, Coppings,
and other apologists are practically silent upon the subject.

[47] See Keeling, _op. cit._

[48] _Idem._

The Socialist and trades-union leader, Oupovalov, from whom we have
previously quoted, testifies that “Trades-unions, as working-class
organizations independent of any political party, were transformed
by the Bolsheviki into party organizations and subordinated to the
Commissaries.” Strumillo, equally competent as a witness, says:
“Another claim of the Social Democrats--that trades-unions should be
independent of political parties--likewise came to nothing. They were
all to be under the control of the Bolsheviki. Alone the All-Russian
Union of Printers succeeded in keeping its independence, _but
eventually for that it was dispersed by the order of Lenin, and the
members of its Executive Committee arrested_.” These statements are
borne out by the testimony of the English trades-unionist, Keeling, who
says:

If a trades-union did not please the higher Soviet it was fined
and suppressed and a new union was formed in its place by the
Bolsheviks themselves. Entry to this new union was only open to
members of the old union who signed a form declaring themselves
entirely in agreement with, and prepared completely to support
in every detail, the policy of the Soviet Government.

Refusal to join on these terms meant the loss of the work
and the salary, together with exclusion from both the first
and second categories.[49] It will readily be understood how
serious a matter it was to oppose any coercive measure.

[49] _I.e._, the food categories entitling one to the highest and next
highest food rations.

Every incentive was held out to the poorer people to spy and
report on the others. A workman or a girl who gave information
that any member of the trades-union was opposed in any way to
the Soviet system was specially rewarded. He or she would be
given extra food and promoted as soon as possible to a seat
upon the executive of the union or a place on the factory
committee.

Soon after the first Congress of the Railroad Workers’ Unions, in
February, 1918, the unions of railway workers were “merged with the
state”--that is, they were forbidden to strike or to function as
defensive or offensive organizations of the workers, and were compelled
to accept the direction of the officials appointed by the central
government and to carry out their orders. At the second Congress of the
Railroad Workers’ Unions, February, 1919, according to _Economicheskaya
Zhizn_ (No. 42), this policy was “sharply and categorically opposed” by
Platonov, himself a Bolshevik and one of the most influential of the
leaders of the railway men’s unions. At the Moscow Conference of Shop
Committees and Trades-Unions, March, 1919, it was reported, according
to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 51), the unions “having given up their
neutrality and independence, completely merged their lot with that of
the Soviet Government.... Their work came to be closely interwoven
with the state activities of the Soviet Government.... Only practical
utilitarian considerations prevent us from completely merging the
trades-unions with the administrative apparatus of the state.”

At the ninth Congress of the Communist Party, held in Moscow, Bucharin
proposed the adoption of certain “basic principles” governing the
status of trades-unions and these were accepted by the Congress:
“In the Soviet state economic and political issues are indivisible,
therefore the economic organs of the Labor movement--the unions--have
to be completely merged with the political--the Soviets--and not to
continue as independent organizations as is the case in a capitalistic
state. Being more limited in their scope, they have to be subordinate
to the Soviets, which are more universal institutions. But merging
with the Soviet apparatus the unions by no means become organs of the
state power; they only take upon themselves the economic functions of
this power.” In his speech Bucharin contended that “such an intimate
connection of the trades-unions with the Soviet power will present an
ideal network of economic administrative organization covering the
whole of Russia.” It is quite clear that the unions must cease to exist
as fighting organizations in the Bolshevist state, and become merely
subordinate agencies carrying out the will of the central power.

Even if this testimony, official and otherwise, were lacking, it
would be evident from the numerous strikes of a serious character
among the best organized workers, and from their violence, that
Bolshevism at this stage of its development found itself in opposition
to the trades-unions. And if the evidence upon that point were not
overwhelming and conclusive, it would only be necessary to read
carefully the numerous laws and decrees of the Bolshevist Government,
and to observe the development of its industrial policy, in order
to understand that trades-unions, as independent and militant
working-class organizations, fighting always to advance the interests
of their class, could not exist under such a system.

The direct and immediate reason for the policy that was adopted toward
the unions was, of course, the state of the industries, which made it
impossible to meet the ever-growing demands made by the unions. There
was, however, a far deeper and profounder reason, namely, the character
of the unions themselves. The Bolsheviki had been forced to recognize
the fundamental weakness of every form of Syndicalism, including
Sovietism. They had found that the Soviets were not qualified to carry
on industry efficiently; that narrow group interests were permitted
to dominate, instead of the larger interests of society as a whole.
The same thing was true of the trades-unions. By its very nature the
trades-union movement is limited to a critical purpose and attitude; it
makes demands and evades responsibilities. The trades-union does not
and cannot, as a trades-union, possess the capacity for constructive
functioning that a co-operative society possesses, for instance.

This fact was very clearly and frankly stated in March, 1919, by L. B.
Krassin, in a criticism which was published in the _Economicheskaya
Zhizn_ (No. 52). He pointed out that, apart from the struggle for
higher wages, “the labor control on the part of the trades-unions
confined itself the whole time to perfunctory supervision of the
activities of the plants, and completely ignored the general work
of production. A scientific technical control, the only kind that
is indispensable, is altogether beyond the capacities of the
trades-unions.” The same issue of this authoritative Bolshevist organ
stated that at the Conference of Electrical Workers it was reported
that “In the course of last year everybody admitted the failure of
workers’ control,” and that the conference had adopted a resolution “to
replace the working-men’s control by one of inspection--_i.e._, by the
engineers of the Council of National Economy.”

Instead of the expected idyllic peace and satisfaction, there was
profound unrest in the Utopia of the Bolsheviki. There was not even
the inspiration of enthusiastic struggle and sacrifice to attain the
goal. The organized workers were disillusioned. They found that the
Bolshevist state, in its relations to them as employer, differed from
the capitalist employers they had known mainly in the fact that it had
all the coercive forces of the state at its command, and a will to use
them without any hesitation or any mercy. One view of the social and
industrial unrest of the period is set forth in the following extract
from the _Severnaya Communa_, March 30, 1919:

At the present moment a tremendous struggle is going on within
the ranks of the proletariat between two diametrically opposed
currents. Part of the proletariat, numerically in the great
majority, still tied to the village, both in a material as well
as an ideological respect, is in an economic sense inclined to
anarchism. It is not connected in production and in interest
in its development. The other part is the industrial, highly
skilled mechanics, who fight for new methods of production.

_By the equalization of pay, and by the introduction of
majority rule in the management of the factories, supposed
to be a policy of democracy, we are only sawing off the limb
on which we are sitting_, for the flower of our proletariat,
the most efficient workers, prefer to go to the villages,
or to engage in home trades, or to do anything else but to
remain within those demolished and dusty fortresses we call
factories. Why, this means in its truest sense _a dictatorship
of unskilled laborers_!

This outcry from one of the principal official organs of the Bolsheviki
is interesting from several points of view. The struggle within the
proletariat itself is recognized. This alone could only mean the
complete abandonment of faith in the original Bolshevist ideal, which
was based upon the solidarity of interest of the working-class as a
whole. The denunciation of the equalitarian principle of uniform wages
for all workers, and of majority rule in the factories, could only come
from a conviction that Bolshevism and Sovietism were alike unsuited to
Russia and undesirable. The scornful reference to a “dictatorship of
unskilled laborers” might have come from any bourgeois employer.

From the official Bolshevist press of this period pages of quotations
might easily be given to show that the transformation to familiar
capitalist conditions was proceeding at a rapid rate. Thus, the
Bolshevist official, Glebov, reported at the Conference of Factory
Committees, in March, 1919: “The fight against economic disintegration
demanded the reintroduction of the premium system. This system has
produced splendid results in many instances, having increased the
productivity of labor 100 to 200 per cent.” The Bolshevist journal,
_Novy Put_, declared, “The most effective means for raising the
efficiency of labor is the introduction of the premium and piece-work
system as against daily wages.” The _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 46)
declared, “An investigation undertaken last month by the trades-unions
has shown that in 75 per cent. of the plants the old system of wages
has been reintroduced and that nearly everywhere this has been followed
by satisfactory and even splendid results.” The same issue of this
important official organ showed that there had been large increases
in production wherever the old system of wages and premiums had been
restored. At the Marx Printing Works the increase was 20 per cent.; at
the Nobel Factory 35 per cent.; at the Aviation Plant 150 per cent.;
and at Seminov’s Lumber Mill 243 per cent.

The _Severnaya Communa_ reported that “In the Nevski Works the
substitution of the premium system for the monthly wage system
increased the productivity of the working-men three and one-half
times, and the cost of labor for one locomotive dropped from 1,400,000
rubles to 807,000 rubles--_i.e._, to almost one-half.” Rykov, president
of the Superior Council of National Economy, one of the ablest of the
Bolshevist officials, reported, according to _Izvestia_, that “in the
Tula Munition Works, after the old ‘premium’ system of wages had been
restored, the productivity of the works and of labor rose to 70 per
cent. of what it was in 1916.”

These are only a few of the many similar statements appearing in the
official Bolshevist press pointing to a reversal of policy and a return
to capitalist methods. On March 1, 1919, a decree of the People’s
Commissaries was promulgated which introduced a new wage scale, based
upon the principle of extra pay for skill. The greater the skill the
higher the rate of wages was the new rule. As published in _Severnaya
Communa_, the scale provided for twenty-seven classes of workers. The
lowest, unskilled class of laborers, domestics, and so forth, receive
600 rubles per month (1st class), 660 rubles (2d class), and so on.
Higher employees, specialists, are put in classes 20 to 27, and receive
from 1,370 to 2,200 rubles a month. Skilled mechanics in chemical
plants, for example, receive 1,051-1,160 rubles. Unskilled laborers,
600 rubles, and chemical engineers more than 2,000 rubles a month.

Nationalization of industry meant, and could only mean, state
capitalism. Communism was as far away as it was under czarism. And many
of the old complaints so familiar in capitalist countries were heard.
The workers were discontented and restless; production, while it was
better than under Soviet control, was still far below the normal level;
there was an enormous growth of bureaucracy and an appalling amount of
corruption. Profiteering and speculation were rampant and inefficiency
was the order of the day. The following extract from an article in
_Pravda_, March 15, 1919, is a confession of failure most abject:

Last year the people of Russia were suffering from lack of
bread. To-day they are in distress because there is plenty of
foodstuffs which cannot be brought out from the country and
which will, no doubt, decay to a great extent when hot weather
arrives.

The misery of bread scarcity is replaced by another
calamity--the plentifulness of breadstuffs. That the situation
is really such is attested by these figures:

The Food Commission and its subsidiary organs have stored up
from August, 1918, to February 20, 1919, grain and forage
products amounting to 82,633,582 poods. There remained on the
last-mentioned date in railroad stations and other collection
centers not less than 22,245,072 poods of grain and fodder.
Of these stocks, according to the incomplete information by
the Transport Branch of the Food Commission, there are stalled
on the Moscow-Kazan and Syzran-Viazma Railroads alone not
less than 2,000,000 poods of grain in 2,382 cars. There are,
moreover, according to the same source, on the Kazanburgsk and
Samara-Zlatoostovsk Line, at least 1,300 more car-loads of
breadstuffs that cannot be moved.

All this grain is stalled because there are no locomotives to
haul the rolling-stock. Thus the starving population does not
receive the bread which is provided for it and which is, in
part, even loaded up in cars.

* * * * *

In a hungry land there must be no misery while there is a
surplus of bread. Such a misfortune would be truly unbearable!

On April 15, 1919, _Izvestia_ published an article by Zinoviev, in
which the famous Bolshevist leader confessed that the Soviet Government
had not materially benefited the average working-man:

Has the Soviet Government, has our party done everything that
can be done for the direct improvement of the daily life of the
average working-man and his family? Alas! we hesitate to answer
this question in the affirmative.

Let us look the truth in the face. We have committed quite a
number of blunders in this realm. _We have to confess that
we are unable to improve the nutrition of the average worker
to any serious extent._ But do the wages correspond with the
actually stupendous rise of prices for unrationed foodstuffs?
Nobody will undertake to answer this question entirely in the
affirmative, while the figures given by Comrade Strumilin
show that in spite of a threefold raise of the wage scale,
the real purchasing power of these wages had shrunk, on the
average, more than 30 per cent. by March of the current year,
as compared with May of last year.

The _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, May 6, 1919, gave a despondent account of
the coal industry and the low production, accompanied by this alarming
picture: “The starving, ill-clad miners are running away from the pits
in a panic, and it is to be feared that in two or three weeks not only
the whole production of coal will be stopped, but most of the mines
will be flooded.”

Nationalization of industry was not a new thing in Russia. It was,
indeed, quite common under czarism. The railways were largely state
owned and operated by the government. Most of the factories engaged
in the manufacture of guns and munitions were also nationalized under
czarism. It is interesting, therefore, to compare the old régime with
the new in this connection. Under czarism nationalization had always
led to the creation of an immense bureaucracy, politically powerful
by reason of its numbers, extravagant, inefficient, and corrupt. That
nationalization under the new régime was attended by the same evils, in
an exaggerated form, the only difference being that the new bureaucracy
was drawn from a different class, is written so plainly in the records
that he who runs may read. No country in the world, it is safe to say,
has ever known such a bureaucracy as the Bolshevist régime produced.

At the eighth All-Russian Congress of the Communist Party, held in
March, 1919, Lenin said: “You imagine that you have abolished private
property, but instead of the old bourgeoisie that has been crushed
you are faced by a new one. The places of the former bourgeoisie have
already been filled up by the newly born bourgeoisie.” The backbone
of this new bourgeoisie was the vast army of government officials
and employees. These and the food speculators and profiteers, many
of whom have amassed great wealth--real wealth, not worthless paper
rubles--make up a formidable bourgeoisie. Professor Miliukov tells of
a statistical department in Moscow with twenty-one thousand employees;
and of eighteen offices having to be visited to get permission to
buy a pair of shoes from the government store. Alexander Berkenheim,
vice-chairman of the Moscow Central Union of Russian Consumers’
Co-operative Societies, said: “The experiment in socialization has
resulted in the building up of an enormous bureaucratic machine. To buy
a pencil one has to call at eighteen official places.” These men are
competent witnesses, notwithstanding their opposition to Bolshevism.
Let us put it aside, however, and consider only a small part of the
immense mass of official Bolshevist testimony to the same general
effect.

On February 21, 1919, the Bolshevist official, Nemensky, presented
to the Supreme Council of National Economy the report of the
official inspection and audit of the Centro-Textile, the central
state organization having charge of the production and distribution
of textiles. There are some sixty of these organizations, such as
Centro-Sugar, Centro-Tea, Centro-Coal, and so on, the entire number
being federated into the Supreme Council of National Economy. From the
report referred to, as published in _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, February
25, 1919, the following paragraphs are quoted:

An enormous staff of employees (about 6,000), for the most
part loafing about, doing nothing; it was discovered that 125
employees were actually not serving at all, but receiving a
salary the same as the others. There have been cases where
some have been paid twice for the same period of time. _The
efficiency of the officials is negligible to a striking
degree...._

The following figures may partially serve as an illustration of
what was the work of the collaborators: For four months--from
August 25 to November 21, 1918--the number of letters received
amounted to 59,959 (making an average of 500 a day), and the
number of letters sent was 25,781 (an average of 207 per day).
Each secretary had to deal with 10 letters received and 4 sent,
each typist with 2 letters sent, and each clerk with 1 letter
received and 0.5 sent. Together with chairs, tables, etc., the
inventory-book contained entries of dinners, rent, etc. When
checking the inventory of the department it was established
that the following were missing--142 tables, 500 chairs, 39
cupboards, 14 typewriters, etc. On the whole, the entries in
the book exceeded by 50 per cent, the number of articles found
on the spot.

Commenting upon this report the _Izvestia_[50] said: “An enormous staff
of employees in most cases lounge about in idleness. An inquiry showed
that _the staff of the Centro-Textile included 125 employees who were
practically not in its service, though drawing their pay. There were
cases where one and the same person drew his pay twice over for one
and the same period of time._ The working capacity of the employees is
ridiculously low; the average correspondence per typist was one letter
outward and one inward per day; the average per male clerk was a half
a letter outward and one inward.” We do not wonder, at Nemensky’s
own comment, “Such Soviet institutions are a beautiful example of
deadening bureaucracy and must be liquidated.”

[50] No. 63, 1919.

The disclosures made in the Centro-Textile were repeated in other
state economic institutions. Thus the _Izvestia_ of the State Control,
commenting upon the Budget for 1919, said:

The Audit Department sees in the increase of expenditure for
the payment of work a series of negative causes. Among these is
that it leads to a double working on parallel lines--_viz._,
the same work is done by two and even more sections, resulting
in mutual friction and disorder and bringing the number of
employees beyond all necessary requirements. We noticed on
more than one occasion that an institution with many auxiliary
branches had been opened before any operations to be carried on
by them were even started.

Furthermore, the work is mostly very slovenly and inefficiently
conducted. It leads to an increase of the number of employees
and workmen without benefit to the work.

In the _Bulletin of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets_
(No. 15) we find this confession: “We have created extraordinary
commissaries and Extraordinary Commissions without number. All of
these are, to a lesser or greater degree, only mischief-makers.”
Lunacharsky, the Bolshevist Commissary of Education, is reported by the
_Severnaya Communa_ of May 23, 1919, as saying: “The upper stratum of
the Soviet rule is becoming detached from the masses and the blunders
of the communist workers are becoming more and more frequent. These
latter, according to statements made by workmen, treat the masses in a
high-handed manner and are very generous with threats and repressions.”
In _Pravda_, May 14, 1919, the Bolshevik, Monastyrev, wrote: “Such a
wholesale loafing as is taking place in our Soviet institutions and
such a tremendous number of officials the history of the world has
never known and does not know. All the Soviet papers have written
about it, and we have felt it on our backs, too.” _Izvestia_ of the
Central Executive Committee (No. 15), 1919, said: “Besides Soviets
and committees, many commissaries and committees have been instituted
here. Almost every commissariat has an extraordinary organ peculiar to
its own department. As a result we have numberless commissaries of all
kinds. All of them are more or less highly arbitrary in their behavior
and by their actions undermine Soviet authority.”

These are only a few of the many statements of a like character
published in the official Bolshevist press. In a country which had long
been accustomed to an immense bureaucracy, the horde of officials was
regarded with astonishment and alarm. Like the old bureaucracy, the
new bureaucracy was at once brutal and corrupt. No one can read the
reports published by the Bolsheviki themselves and fail to be impressed
by the entire absence of idealism so far as the great majority of the
officials are concerned, a fact which Lenin himself has commented
upon more than once. That there were and are exceptions to the rule
we may well believe, just as there were such exceptions under the old
régime of Nicholas II. Upon the whole, however, it is difficult to see
wherein the bureaucracy of the Bolsheviki was less brutal, less coarse,
or less corrupt than that of czarism. But again let the Bolsheviki
speak through their own recognized spokesmen:

According to _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, November
1, 1918, a commission of five which had been appointed to discover and
distribute metal among the factories in proportion to their needs was
found to have been bribed to distribute the metal, not in proportion to
the needs of the industries, but according to the value of the bribe.

From the _Weekly Report of the Extraordinary Commission_, No. 1,
page 28, we learn that the administration of the combined Moscow
nationalized factories was convicted of a whole series of abuses and
speculations, resulting in the embezzlement of many millions of rubles.
It was said that members of the administrative board and practically
all the employees took part in this graft.

From _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, November 3, 1918,
we learn that the Soviet of National Economy of Kursk, connected
with the Supreme Council of National Economy, was found guilty of
speculative dealings in sugar and hemp.

In the same important official journal, January 22, 1919, the
well-known Bolshevik, Kerzhentzev, in a terrible exposure from which
we have already quoted in an earlier chapter, says: “The abundant
testimony, verified by the Soviet Commission, portrays a very striking
picture of violence. When these members of the Executive Committee [he
names Glakhov, Morev, and Makhov] arrived at the township of Sadomovo
they commenced to assault the population and to rob them of foodstuffs
and of their household belongings, such as quilts, clothing, harness,
etc. No receipts for the requisitioned goods were given and no money
paid. “_They even resold to others on the spot some of the breadstuffs
which they had requisitioned._” Again, the same journal published,
on March 9, 1919, a report by a prominent Bolshevik, Sosnovsky, on
conditions in the Tver Province, saying: “The local Communist Soviet
workers behave themselves, with rare exceptions, in a disgusting
manner. _Misuse of power is going on constantly._”

A cursory examination of the files of the _Bulletin of the Central
Executive Committee of the Soviets_, for the first few months of
1919, reveals a great deal of such evidence as the foregoing. In No.
12 we read: “The toiling population see in the squandering of money
right and left by the commissaries and in their indecent loudness and
profanity during their trips through the district, the complete absence
of party discipline.” In No. 13 of the same organ there is an account
of the case of Commissary Odintzov, a member of the peace delegation
to the Ukraine, who was “found speculating in breadstuffs.” In No.
20 we read that “members of the Extraordinary Commission, Unger and
Lebedev, were found guilty of embezzlement.” No. 25 says that “a case
has been started against the commissaries, O. K. Bogdanov and Zaitzev,
accused of misappropriating part of the requisitioned gold and silver
articles.”

Let us hear from some of the leading Bolsheviki who participated in the
debate on the subject of the relation of the central Soviet authority
to local self-government at the eighth Congress of the Communist Party,
March, 1919. Nogin, former president of the Moscow Soviet, said: “The
time has come to state openly before this meeting how low our party has
fallen. We have to confess that the representatives both of the central
and the local authorities disgrace the name of the party by their
conduct. _Their drunkenness and immorality, the robberies and other
crimes committed by them, are so terrible as scarcely to be believed._”
Commissar Volin said: “Some of the local authorities give themselves
over to outrageous abominations. How can they be put a stop to? The
word ‘communist’ rouses deep hatred, not only among the bourgeoisie,
but even among the poorer and the middle classes which we are ruining.
What can we do for our own salvation?” Pakhomoff said: “I sent several
comrades to the villages. _They had barely reached their destination
when they turned bandits._” Ossinsky said, “The revolts now taking
place are not White Guard risings, as formerly, but rebellions caused
by famine _and the outrageous behavior of our own commissaries_.”

Zinoviev was equally emphatic in his declaration: “It cannot be
concealed from this meeting that in certain localities the word
‘communist’ has become a term of abuse. The people are beginning to
hate the ‘men in leather jackets,’ as the commissaries were nicknamed
in Perm. The fact cannot be denied, and we must look the truth in the
face. Every one knows that both in the provinces and in the large
towns the housing reform has been carried out imperfectly. True,
the bourgeoisie has been driven out of its houses, _but the workmen
have gained nothing thereby. The houses are taken possession of by
Bolshevist state employees_, and sometimes they have been occupied,
not even by the ‘Soviet bureaucrat,’ but by his mother-in-law or
grandmother.”

Not only has the bribery of officials grown, as revealed by the reports
of the Extraordinary Commissions, but many of the Bolshevist officials
have engaged in food speculation. That the greatest buyers of the food
illegally sold at the Sukharevka market are the highly paid Soviet
officials is a charge frequently made in the Bolshevist press. In
November, 1919, Tsurupa, People’s Commissary for Supplies, published an
article in _Izvestia_ (No. 207), exposing the speculation in foodstuffs
at the Sukharevka market, formerly the largest market for second-hand
goods in Moscow, now the center of illicit speculation. Tsurupa said:

At the present moment a number of measures are being drawn up
to begin war on “Sukharevka.” The struggle must be carried
on in two directions: first, the strengthening of the organs
of supply and the control over the work of Soviet machinery;
secondly, the destruction of speculators. The measures of
the second kind are, of course, merely palliative, and it
is impossible to overcome “Sukharevka” without insuring the
population a certain supply of the rationed foodstuffs.

Even among our respected comrades there are some who consider
“Sukharevaka” as an almost normal thing, or, at any rate, as
supplementing the gaps in food-supply.

* * * * *

Many defects in our organization are directly conducive to
speculation. Thus many head commissariats, centers, factories,
and works pay their workmen and employees in foodstuffs
exceeding their personal requirements, and, as a rule, these
articles find their way to “Sukharevka” for purposes of
speculation.

The foodstuffs which find their way to “Sukharevka” are sold
at such high prices that _only the upper circles of Soviet
employees can afford to buy them, the masses of consumers being
totally unable to do so_. These foodstuffs are at the disposal
of the--so to speak--_Soviet bourgeoisie_, who can afford to
squander thousands of rubles. “Sukharevka” gives nothing to the
masses.

The Moscow Extraordinary Commission is carrying on an active
campaign against “Sukharevka” speculation. As a result of a
fortnight’s work, 437 persons have been arrested, and a series
of transactions have been discovered. The most important cases
were as follows:

(1) Sale of 19 million rubles’ worth of textiles.

(2) Sale of three wagon-loads of sugar. (At the price of even
200 rubles, and not 400 rubles, a wagon of 36,000 pounds of
sugar works out at 8,000,000 rubles, and the whole deal amounts
to 24,000,000 rubles.)

(3) Seventeen wagon-loads of herrings.

(4) 15,000,000 rubles’ worth of rubber goods, etc.

In the course of the campaign of the Moscow Extraordinary Commission
above referred to it was discovered that the state textile stores
in Moscow had been looted by the “Communists” in charge of them.
Millions of yards of textiles, instead of being placed on sale in
the nationalized stores, had been sold to speculators and found their
way into the Sukharevka. During the summer of 1919 the Bolshevist
official press literally teemed with revelations of graft, spoliation,
and robbery by officials. The report of the Smolensk Extraordinary
Commission showed that hundreds of complaints had been made and
investigated. In general the financial accounts were kept with almost
unbelievable carelessness and laxity. Large sums of money were paid out
on the order of single individuals without the knowledge of any other
officials, and without check of any sort. Out of a total expenditure of
three and a half million rubles for food rations to soldiers’ families
there were no vouchers or receipts for 1,161,670 rubles, according to
the report. Commenting upon the reign of corruption in all parts of
Soviet Russia, the _Krasnaya Gazeta_, in an article entitled, “When Is
This to End?” said:

In the Commissariat of the Boards for the various
municipalities thefts of goods and money are almost of daily
occurrence. Quite recently representatives of the State Control
found that silk and other goods for over a million rubles
had been stolen within a short space of time from the goods
listed as nationalized. Furthermore, it has come out during
the inspection of the nationalized houses that thefts and
embezzlements of the people’s money have become an ordinary
occurrence. It is remarkable how light-fingered gentry who are
put to manage the confiscated houses succeed in getting away
after pocketing the money belonging to the Soviet, and all that
with impunity, _and yet the money stolen by them is estimated
not at hundreds of rubles, but at tens of thousands of rubles_.
Will there ever be an end to these proceedings? Or is complete
liberty to be given to the thieves in Soviet Russia to do as
they like?

Why does the Extraordinary Commission not see to the affairs of
the Commissariat of the Municipality? It is high time all these
Augean stables were cleaned up. This must stop at last. The
Soviet authorities are sufficiently strong to have some scores
of these thieves of the people’s property hanged. To close
one’s eyes to all this is the same as encouraging the thieves.

Here, then, is a part of the evidence of the brutality and corruption
of the vast bureaucracy which Bolshevism has developed to replace the
old bureaucracy of the Czars. It is only a small part of the total mass
of such evidence.[51] Every word of it comes from Bolshevist officials
and journals of standing and authority. It will not do to seek to evade
the issue by setting up the plea that corruption and brutality are
found in other lands. That plea not only “begs the question,” but it
destroys the only foundation upon which an honest attempt to justify
Bolshevism can be made, namely, the claim that it represents a higher
stage of civilization, of culture, and morality than the old. Only a
profound belief in the righteousness of that claim could justify the
recourse to such a terrible method of bringing about a change in the
social organization of a great nation. There is not the faintest shadow
of a reason for believing that Bolshevism has been one whit less
corrupt than the czarist bureaucracy.

[51] In _Les Bolsheviks à l’œuvre_, Paris, 1920, A. Lockerman gives a
list of many similar cases of looting and graft by commissars.

What of efficiency? Does the available evidence tend to show that
this bureaucratic system managed to secure a degree of efficiency in
production and distribution commensurate, in part, at least, with its
enormous cost? On the contrary, while there was a marked increase in
output after nationalization was introduced, due to the restoration
of capitalist methods of management, the enormous cost at which the
improvement was effected, for which the bureaucracy was responsible,
left matters in a deplorable condition. This can be well understood
in view of the fact, cited by Professor Issaiev, that in one of
the largest metal works in Moscow the overhead charges, cost of
administration, accounting, and so on, which in 1916, the last year of
the old régime, amounted to 15 per cent. of the total cost, rose to
over 65 per cent. in 1918-19. This was not an unusual case, but fairly
typical. Once again, however, let us resist the temptation to quote
such figures, based upon the calculations and researches of hostile
critics, and confine ourselves strictly to Bolshevist testimony.

At the end of December, 1918, Rykov, president of the Supreme Council
of National Economy, reported to the Central Executive Committee,
according to _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, “Now almost all the large and
medium-sized establishments are nationalized.” A few days later an
article by Miliutin, published in the same paper, said: “A year ago
there were about 36 per cent. of nationalized establishments throughout
Soviet Russia. At the present time 90 per cent. of industrial
establishments are nationalized.” On January 12, 1919, the same
journal reported that nationalization had become general throughout
Russian industry, embracing the textile and metallurgical industries,
glass-making, printing, publishing, practically all commerce, and
even barber shops. We are, therefore, in a fair position to judge the
effects of nationalization upon the basis of subsequent reports.

It is not as well known as it ought to be that the Bolsheviki, even
under nationalization, continued the practice, established under
czarism and maintained by the Provisional Government under Kerensky, of
subsidizing factories from the central treasury of the government. Bad
as this practice was under capitalism, it was immeasurably worse when
applied to industry under Soviet control and to nationalized industry.
It was not only conducive to laxity and bad management, but it invited
these as well as being destructive of enterprise and energy. The sums
spent for this purpose were enormous, staggering in their total. A few
illustrations must suffice to show this. According to _Economicheskaya
Zhizn_ (No. 50), in the month of January, 1919, the Metal Department
of the Supreme Council of National Economy distributed among the
various nationalized metallurgical works 1,167,295,000 rubles, and the
central organization of the copper industry received 1,193,990,000
rubles. According to a report of the Section of Polygraphic
Trades, published in _Pravda_, May 17, 1919, nineteen nationalized
printing-establishments lost 13,500,000 rubles during 1918, the deficit
having to be made up by subsidies from the central treasury. At the
Conference of Tobacco Workers, held on April 25, 1919, it was reported,
according to _Severnaya Communa_, that the Petrograd factories alone
were being operated at a loss approaching two million rubles a month.
It was further stated that “the condition of the tobacco industry is
bad. The number of plants has been decreased by more than half, and the
output is only one-third.” In the report of Nemensky on the audit of
the Centro-Textile, from which we have already quoted, we read:

The Finance Credit Division of the Centrotekstil received up to
February 1, 1919, 3,400,000,000 rubles. There was no control
of the expenditure of moneys. _Money was advanced to factories
immediately upon demand, and there were cases when money was
forwarded to factories which did not exist._ From July 1 to
December 31, 1918, the Centrotekstil advanced on account of
products to be received 1,348,619,000 rubles. The value of the
goods securing these advances received up to January 1, 1919,
was only 143,716,000 rubles. The Centrotekstil’s negligent
way of doing business may be particularly observed from the
way it purchased supplies of raw wool. Up to January 1, 1919,
only 129,803 poods of wool was acquired, whereas the annual
requirement is figured at 3,500,000 poods.

The value of the goods actually received was, according to this
authority, only 10 per cent. of the money advanced. We are told that
“money was forwarded to factories which did not exist.” That this
practice was not confined to the Centro-Textile we infer from the
account given in the _Izvestia_ of State Control (No. 2) of a firm
which obtained a large sum of money in advance for Westinghouse brakes
to be manufactured and supplied by it, though investigation proved
that the firm did not even own a foundry and was unable to furnish
any brakes at all. How much of this represents inefficiency, and how
much of it graft, the reader must judge for himself. The Bolshevist
newspaper, _Trud_, organ of the trades-unions, in an article dealing
with the closing down of nineteen textile factories, said, April 28,
1919:

In our textile crisis a prominent part is played also by the
bad utilization of that which we do have. Thus the efficiency
of labor has dropped to almost nothing, of labor discipline
there is not even a trace left, the machinery, on account of
careless handling, has deteriorated and its productive capacity
has been lowered.

In _Izvestia_ of the Central Executive Committee, March 21, 1919,
Bucharin said: “Our position is such that, together with the
deterioration of the material production--machinery, railways, and
other things--_there is a destruction of the fundamental productive
force, the labor class, as such_. Here in Russia, as in western
Europe,[52] the working-class is dissolving, factories are closing, and
the working-class is reabsorbed into the villages.”

[52] _Sic!_

From the report of the Supreme Council of National Economy, March,
1919, we learn that in the vast majority of the branches of Russia’s
industry the labor required for production had increased from 400 to
500 per cent. The Congress of Salesmen’s Unions, held at the end of
April, 1919, adopted a resolution, published in _Izvestia_ (No. 97),
which said, “The nationalization of commerce, owing to the pell-mell
speed of the methods employed in carrying it out, has assumed with us
extremely ugly forms, and has only aggravated the bad state of affairs
in the circulation of goods in the country, which was poor enough as it
was.”

These statements show that in the early part of last year the
Bolshevist régime was in a very critical condition. Demands for the
“liquidation” of the system were heard on every hand. Instead of this,
the resourceful rulers of Soviet Russia once more revolutionized their
methods. The period of nationalization we have been considering may be
described as the first phase, the period of the rule of industry by the
professional politicians of the Communist Party. When, in March, 1919,
Leonid B. Krassin[53] undertook the reorganization of the industrial
life of the nation, Bolshevism entered upon a new phase.

[53] Krassin’s first name is usually given as “Gregory,” but this is an
error. His full name is Leonid Borisovitch Krassin. He is a Siberian of
bourgeois extraction.

THE NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY--II

The second phase of nationalization may be characterized as the
adoption by a political state of the purest capitalist methods. Krassin
was not a Bolshevik or a Socialist of any kind, so far as can be
learned. He severed his rather nominal connection with the Socialist
movement in 1906, it is said, and, thoroughly disillusioned, devoted
himself to his profession and to the management of the Petrograd
establishment of the great German firm of Siemens-Schuckart. He is said
to have maintained very cordial relations with Lenin and was asked by
the latter to accept three portfolios, namely, Commerce and Industry,
Transports, and War and Munitions. He agreed to take the appointment,
provided the Soviet Government would accept his conditions. He demanded
(1) the right to appoint specialists of his own choosing to manage all
the departments under his control, regardless of their political or
social views; (2) that all remaining workers’ committees of control be
abolished and that he be given the power to replace them by responsible
directors, with full powers; (3) that piece-work payments and premiums
take the place of day-work payment, with the right to insist upon
overtime regardless of any existing rules or laws.

Of course, acceptance of these conditions was virtually an abandonment
of every distinctive principle and ideal the Bolsheviki had ever
advanced. Krassin immediately set to work to bring some semblance of
order out of the chaos. The “iron discipline” that was introduced
and the brutal suppression of strikes already described were due to
his powerful energy. A martinet, with no sort of use for the Utopian
visions of his associates, Krassin is a typical industrial despot.
The attitude of the workers toward him was tersely stated by the
_Proletarskoe Echo_ in these words: “How Comrade Krassin has organized
the traffic we have all seen and now know. We do not know whether
Comrade Krassin has improved the traffic, but one thing is certain,
that his autocratic ways as a Commissary greatly remind us of the
autocratic policy of a Czar.”[54]

[54] Quoted by H. W. Lee, _The Dictatorship of the Proletariat_, p. 7.

Yet Krassin failed to do more or better than prolong the hopeless
struggle against utter ruin and disastrous failure. He was, after all,
an engineer, not a miracle-worker. Trades-unions were deprived of power
and made mere agencies for transmitting autocratic orders; tens of
thousands of useless politicians were ousted from the factories and
the railways; the workers’ control was so thoroughly broken that there
were not left in Soviet Russia a dozen workers’ committees possessing
the power of the printers’ “chapel” in the average large American
newspaper plant, or anything like the power possessed by hundreds, and
perhaps thousands, of shop committees in our industrial centers.[55]
But Krassin and his stern capitalist methods had come too late. The
demoralization had gone too far.

[55] In view of the denials of the dissolution of workers’ control,
circulated by _Soviet Russia_ and the whole body of pro-Bolshevist
propagandists, it may be well to clinch the statements made on this
point by quoting from an indisputable authority. In the issue of
_Economicheskaya Zhizn_, November 13, 1919, appears the following
paragraph:

“Schliapnikoff, Commissar of Labor in the Soviet Republic, writes: ‘The
principal cause of the deplorable situation of the Russian industry is
a total absence of order and discipline in the factories. The Working
Men’s Councils and the Shop Committees, created with the purpose of
establishing order in the factories, exercised an injurious influence
on the general course of affairs by destroying the last traces of
discipline and by squandering away the property of the factories. _All
those circumstances put together have compelled us to abolish the
Working Men’s Councils and to place at the head of the most important
concerns special “dictators,” with unlimited powers and entitled to
dispose of the life and death of the workmen._’”

Only a brief summary of the most important statistical data
illustrating the results attained during the remainder of the year
1919, that is to say, the second phase of nationalization, can be given
here. To attempt anything like a detailed presentation of the immense
mass of available official statistical data covering this period would
of itself require a large volume. If we take the _Economicheskaya
Zhizn_ for the months of October and November, 1919, we shall be
able to get a fairly good measure of the results attained during the
half-year following the reorganization of the system by Krassin. It
must always be borne in mind that the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ is the
official organ of the Supreme Economic Council and of the Ministries
of Finance, Commerce and Trade, and Food. To avoid having to use the
name of the journal in almost every other line, the statements of fact
made upon its authority are followed by numbers inclosed in brackets;
these numbers indicate the issues from which the statements are
taken.[56]

[56] For the mass of translations covering this period the author is
indebted to Mr. Alexander Kerensky.

Turning our attention first to the important subject of transportation,
to which Krassin naturally devoted special attention, we find that on
the entire railway system of Soviet Russia the number of freight-cars
and trucks in daily service during August and September averaged
between 7,000 and 7,500. Of this number from 45 to 50 per cent.--that
is, from 3,500 to 3,750 cars--were used for carrying fuel for the
railway service itself; transportation of military supplies took 25 per
cent., from 1,750 to 1,850 cars; 10 per cent., from 700 to 750 cars,
were used for “evacuation purposes,” and only 15 to 20 per cent., 1,050
to 1,150 cars, for general transportation (_215_). It is worthy of
note that of this absurdly inadequate service for the transportation
of general supplies for the civilian population, 95 per cent. was used
for the transportation of wood fuel for the cities and towns (_229_).
Not less than 50 per cent. of all the locomotives in the country were
out of order at the beginning of November, 1919, and it was stated that
to increase the percentage of usable engines to the normal level would
require, under the most favorable circumstances, a period of at least
five years (_228_). Despite this deplorable condition there was still
a great deal of bureaucratic red tape and waste. At the meeting of the
directors of the Supreme Council of National Economy, in September,
Markov, a member, argued in favor of eliminating the red tape and
waste. He pointed out that wood was being transported to Moscow _from_
the West and at the same time _to_ the West from the North. The Main
Fuel Committee had rejected a proposal to exchange the supplies of wood
and thus save transportation (_214_). River transportation was in just
as bad a condition, to judge from the fact that the freight tonnage on
the river Volga was only 11 per cent. of the pre-war volume (_228_).

To prove the humanitarian character of the Bolshevist régime its
apologists in this country and in England have cited the fact that the
Soviet authorities offered a prize for the invention of a hand-cart
which would permit a maximum load to be pushed or drawn with a
minimum expenditure of human strength. Quite another light is thrown
upon this action by the data concerning the breakdown of mechanical
transportation and the rapid disappearance of horses from Moscow and
Petrograd. The number of horses in September, 1919, was only 8 per
cent. of the number in November, 1917--that is to say, under Bolshevism
the number of horses had declined 92 per cent. (_207_). Of course the
decline was not so enormous throughout the whole of Soviet Russia, but
it was, nevertheless, so serious as to prohibit any hope of making up
the loss of mechanical power by the use of horses. Accordingly, we find
arrangements for the organization of a rope haulage system for the
transportation of coal and food. In the Bazulk and Aktiubin districts
provision was made for the use of 6,000 carts to transport wood fuel,
and 10,000 carts for corn (_228_). Similar arrangements were under way
in other districts. From locomotives and steamers to transport food
and fuel there was a return to the most primitive of methods, such as
were used to transport the Great Pyramid in Egypt, as shown by the
hieroglyphs. For this purpose the peasants were mobilized (_228_). The
bodies of masses of men were substituted for horses and mechanical
traction. _Thus was reintroduced into Russian life in the twentieth
century the form of labor most hated in the old days of serfdom._

The fuel situation was exceedingly bad. Not more than 55 per cent.
of the fuel oil required could be obtained, the deficiency amounting
to over four million poods of oil (_221_). Only 33 per cent. of the
fuel wood required was obtained (_221_). The production of coal in the
Moscow region was 45 per cent. lower than in 1917 (_224_). To overcome
the shortage of fuel in Petrograd a large number of houses and boats
were ordered to be wrecked for the sake of the wood (_227_). To save
the country from perishing for lack of fuel, it was proposed that the
modest fir cones which dropped from the trees be collected and saved.
It was proposed to mobilize school-children, disabled soldiers, and old
and sick persons to collect these fir cones (_202_).

In the nationalized cotton-factories there were 6,900,962 spindles
and 169,226 looms, but only 300,000 spindles and 18,182 looms were
actually working on September 1st (_207_). On January 1, 1919, there
were 48,490 textile-workers in the Moscow District; six months later
there were 33,200, a reduction of 15,290--that is, 35 per cent.
(_220_). In the same period the number of workers engaged in preparing
raw cotton was reduced by 47.2 per cent. (_220_). In the metal works
of Petrograd there were nominally employed a total of 12,141 workers,
of which number only 7,585--that is, 62.4 per cent.--were actually
working. Of 7,500 workmen registered at the Putilov Works only 2,800,
or 37.3 per cent., were actually working on August 15th. At the Nevsky
Shipbuilding and Engineering Works not less than 56 per cent. of
the employees were classed as absentees for the first half of July,
70 per cent. for the second half, and 84 per cent. for the first
half of August. That is to say, of those nominally employed at this
important works the actual daily attendance was 44 per cent. during
the first half of July, 30 per cent. for the second half, and only 16
per cent. for the first half of August (_209_). Since then the Nevsky
Shipbuilding and Engineering Works have been entirely closed. It must
be remembered that even during the Kerensky régime the metallurgical
establishments in Petrograd District, which included some of the finest
plants in the world, gave employment to more than 100,000 workmen as
against 12,141 registered employees in September, 1919.

In the nationalized leather-factories of the Moscow District the
output of large hides was 43 per cent. less than the output of
1918, which was itself far below the normal average (_227_). In the
factories which were not nationalized the output of large hides
was 60 per cent. less than in 1918. The apparent superiority of the
nationalized factories indicated by these figures is explained by the
fact that the Centrokaja, the central administration of the leather
industry, gave preference to the nationalized factories in the supply
of tanning acids, fuel, and other necessities of production (_227_).
Just as in the metallurgical industry smaller undertakings had a
better chance of surviving than larger ones (_211_), so in the leather
industry[57] (_227_). In both cases the establishments not nationalized
are far more successful than the nationalized. The output of small
hides in nationalized undertakings fell by 60 per cent., and in the
establishments not nationalized by 18 per cent. (_227_).

[57] Yet we find the Bolshevik, Bazhenov, writing in the
_Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 50), in March, 1919, the following
nonsense: “The only salvation for Russia’s industry lies in the
nationalization of large enterprises and the closing of small and
medium-sized ones.” Bazhenov is evidently a doctrinaire Marxist of the
school to whom one ounce of theory is of more worth than a ton of facts.

The four nationalized match-factories in the northern region employed
2,000 persons. The output in October, 1919, was 50 per cent. of the
normal output, the explanation being given that the falling off was due
to the fact that large numbers of workmen had to be sent off into the
villages to search for bread, while others had to be assigned to work
in the fields and to loading wood for fuel (_225_). The manufacture of
electric lamps was practically at a standstill. The Petrograd factories
were closed down because of a shortage of skilled workmen and technical
directors; the Moscow factories, because of the complete absence
of gas (_210_). The sugar industry was almost completely liquidated
(_207_).

In the report of the People’s Commissariat for Finance we get a
graphic and impressive picture of the manner in which this ill-working
nationalization was, and is, bolstered up. For financing the
nationalized industries appropriations were made as follows:

First six months of 1918 762,895,100 rubles
Second six months of 1918 5,141,073,179 “
First six months of 1919 15,439,115,828 “

The report calls attention to the fact that whereas it had been
estimated that there would be paid into the treasury during the first
six months of 1919 for goods issued for consumption 1,503,516,945
rubles, the sum actually received was 54,564,677 rubles--that is, only
3.5 per cent.

Some idea of the conditions prevailing can be gathered from the
desperate attempts to produce substitutes for much-needed articles. The
_ersatz_ experiments and achievements of the Germans during the war may
have had something to do with this. At all events, we find attempts
made in the cotton-factories to use “cottonized” flax as a substitute
for cotton (_207_). These attempts did not afford any satisfactory or
encouraging results. In consequence of the almost complete stoppage
of the sugar industry we find the Soviet authorities resorting to
attempts to produce sugar from sawdust (_207_). Even more pathetic is
the manner in which attempts were made to supply salt. This necessary
commodity had, for all practical purposes, completely disappeared from
the market, though on October 3d, in Petrograd, it was quoted at 140
to 150 rubles per pound (_221_). As a result of this condition, in
several districts old herring-barrels, saturated with salt, were cut
up into small pieces and used in cooking instead of salt (_205_). A
considerable market for these pieces of salted wood was found.

We may profitably close this summary of the economic situation in
Soviet Russia in October and November, 1919, by quoting from the report
of the Chief Administration of Engineering Works:

If we had reason to fear last year for the working of our
transport, the complaints of its inefficiency being well
grounded, matters have become considerably worse during the
period under report. Water transport is by no means in a better
position, whilst of haulage transport there is no need to
speak.... The consuming needs of the workmen have not been even
remotely satisfied, either in the last year or in the current
year, by the Commissariat of Food Supply, _the main source of
food-supply of the workmen being speculation and free market_.
But even the latter source of food-supply of the workmen in
manufacturing districts is becoming more and more inaccessible.
Besides the fact that prices have soared up to a much greater
extent than the controlled rates of wages, we see the almost
complete disappearance of food articles from working-center
markets. _Of recent times, even pilgrimage to villages is of
no avail. The villages will not part with food for money even
at high prices._ What they demand is articles of which the
workers are no less in need. Hence the workers’ escape from the
factories (_220_).

Unfortunately, a good many of the concerns enumerated [in the
Tula District] do not work or work only with half the output,
in spite of the fact that 20 of the shafts working yield
considerable quantities of coal, 10 mines supply much raw
material (15 milliard poods of minerals are estimated to be
lying in this district), whilst there is also a large number of
broken lathes and machinery which can, however, be repaired.
Bread for the workers could also be found, if all efforts were
strained (the district used to export corn in peace-time). All
these possibilities are not carried into life, as there are
no people who could by their intense will and sincere desire
restore the iron discipline of labor. Our institutions are
filled with “Sovburs” and “Speks,” who only think of their own
welfare and not of the welfare of the state and of making use
of the revolutionary possibilities of the “toilers in revolt.”

In the light of this terrible evidence we can readily believe what
Zinoviev wrote in an article contributed to the _Severnaya Communa_ in
January of this year. In that article he said: “King Famine seems to
be putting out his tongue at the proletariat of Petrograd and their
families.... Of late I have been receiving, one after another, starving
delegations from working men and women. They do not protest, nor do
they make any demands; they merely point out, with silent reproach, the
present intolerable state of affairs.”

We are not dependent upon general statements such as Zinoviev’s for
our information concerning the state of affairs in Soviet Russia in
January, 1920. We have an abundance of precise and authoritative data.
In the first place, Gregor Alexinsky has published, in admirable
translation, the text of the most important parts of the reports
made to the Joint Congress of the Councils of National Economy,
Trades-Unions and the Central Soviet Power. This congress opened in
Moscow on January 25, 1920, and lasted for several days. Important
reports were made to it by A. Rykov, president of the Supreme Council
of National Economy; M. Tomsky, chairman of the Central Council of
Trades-Unions; Kamenev, president of the Moscow Soviet; Lenin, Trotsky,
and others. Alexinsky was fortunate enough to secure copies of the
stenographic reports of the speeches made at this joint congress. In
addition to this material the present writer has had placed at his
disposal several issues of _Izvestia_ containing elaborate reports of
the congress. At the outset Rykov dealt with the effects of the World
War and the Civil War upon the economic situation:

During the past few years of Imperialistic (World) and Civil
Wars the exhaustion of the countries of Europe, and in
particular of Russia, has reached unheard-of proportions.
This exhaustion has affected the whole territory of the
Imperialistic war, but _the Civil war has been, as regards
dissipation of the national wealth and waste of material and
human resources, much more detrimental than the Imperialistic
war_, for it spread across the greater part of the territory of
Soviet Russia, involving not only the clashing of armies, but
also devastation, fires, and destruction of objects of greatest
value and of structures.

* * * * *

The Civil War, having caused an unparalleled waste of the
human and material resources of the Republic, has engendered
an economic and productive crisis. In its main features this
crisis is one of transportation, fuel, and human labor power.

Truly these are interesting admissions--here is “a very Daniel come to
judgment.” The civil war, we are told, has been “much more detrimental
than the Imperialistic war,” it has “caused an unparalleled waste of
the human and material resources of the republic.” Is it not pertinent
to remind ourselves that for bringing on the civil war the Bolsheviki
were solely responsible? There was no civil war in Russia until they
began it. The whole of the democratic forces of Russia were unitedly
working for the reconstruction of the nation upon a sound basis of
free democracy. They began the civil war in the face of the most
solemn warnings and despite the fact that every thoughtful person
could foresee its inevitable disastrous results. By Rykov’s confession
the Bolsheviki are condemned for having brought upon Russia evils
greater than those which the World War brought in its train. Of the
transportation problem Rykov has this to say:

Before the war, the percentage of disabled locomotives, even
in the worst of times, never rose above 15 per cent. At the
present time, however, we have 59.5 per cent. of disabled
locomotives--_i.e._, out of every 100 locomotives in Soviet
Russia 60 are disabled, and only 40 capable of working. The
repair of disabled locomotives also keeps on declining with
extraordinary rapidity; before the war we used to repair up to
8 per cent.; this percentage, after the October revolution,
sometimes dropped to 1 per cent.; now we have gone up, but
only 1 per cent., and we are now repairing 2 per cent. of our
locomotives. Under present conditions of railway transportation
the repairs do not keep abreast of the deterioration of our
locomotives, and _every month we have, in absolute figures, 200
locomotives less than the preceding month_. It is indispensable
that we raise the repair of locomotives from 2 per cent. up
to 10 per cent., in order to stop the decline and further
disintegration of railway transportation, in order to maintain
it at least on the level on which it stands at the present
time. As for the broad masses of the population, the workers
and peasants of Soviet Russia, _these figures simply mean
that there is no possibility of utilizing any one of those
grain-producing regions, nor those which have raw material and
fuel, that have been added to Soviet Russia as a result of the
victory of the Red Army_.

According to Trotsky, Rykov’s figures, depressing enough in all
conscience, did not disclose the full gravity of the situation. The
real number of disabled locomotives was greater than the figures
given, he said, for the reason that “we frequently call ‘sound’
half-disabled locomotives which threaten to drop out completely on
the morrow.” Rykov’s statements do more than merely confirm those
previously quoted from the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_: they show that from
October to January there had been a steady increase of deterioration;
that conditions had gone from bad to worse. The report proceeds to
illustrate the seriousness of the situation by concrete examples of the
actual conditions confronting the government:

We have a metallurgical region in the Ural mountains; but we
have had at our disposal until now but _one single special
train a month to carry metals from the Urals to central
Russia_. In order to transport 10 million poods[58] of metal by
one single train per month several decades would be required,
should we be able to utilize those scanty supplies of metal
which are ready in the Urals.

[58] One pood equals thirty-six pounds.

In order to deliver cotton from Turkestan to the textile
factories in Moscow, we have to carry more than one-half
million poods per month--up to 600,000 poods. But at this time
we have only about two trains a month; that is, scores of years
will be required for transporting under present conditions
from Turkestan those 8 million poods of cotton which we could
convert, but are unable to deliver to the factories.

The disorganized and demoralized state of the transportation system was
only partly responsible for the shortage of raw materials, however.
It was only one of several causes: “On account of the disorganized
state of transportation we are unable to obtain cotton now, as the
railroads are unable to carry it here. But even as regards those raw
materials which are produced in the central parts of Soviet Russia,
such as flax, wool, hemp, hides, even in these raw stuffs Soviet Russia
is experiencing a severe crisis.” Attention is called to the enormous
decline in the production of flax, the acreage devoted to this crop
being only 30 per cent. of that formerly devoted to it and the yield
very much poorer. Rykov offers as an explanation of this condition the
fact that, as the Soviet Government had not been able to deliver to the
peasants in the flax-producing districts “any considerable quantity of
foodstuffs,” the peasants grew foodstuffs instead of flax. He adds,
“Another reason why the peasants began to cultivate grains instead
of flax was that the speculative prices of bread are higher than the
fixed prices of flax at which the state is purchasing it.” He pours the
cold water of realism upon the silly talk of huge exports of flax from
Russia as soon as trade with foreign nations is opened up, and says,
“_But we shall not be able to export large quantities of flax abroad,
and the catastrophic decline in flax production as compared with 1919
raises the question whether the flax industry shall not experience in
1920 a flax shortage similar to the one experienced by the textile
industry in cotton._”

Rykov calls attention to the decline in the production of hides for
leather and of wool. During the first six months of 1919 the hides
collected amounted to about one million pieces, but the total for the
whole of 1920 was not expected to exceed 650,000 pieces. “The number
of hides delivered to the government decreases with every succeeding
month.” There was also to be observed “a decline in the quantity of
live stock, especially those kinds which furnish wool for our woolen
mills.” But perhaps the most impressive part of his report is that
dealing with the fuel shortage. Though adjacent to large coal-fields,
as well as to vast forests, Moscow in the winter of 1919-20 lacked fuel
“even for heating the infirmaries and hospitals.” For the winter of
1919-20 the Council of People’s Commissaries had fixed the necessary
quantity of wood for fuel to be produced at 12,000,000 to 14,000,000
cubic sagenes (one cubic sagene being equal to two cubic meters). But
the Administrations which were charged with the work forwarded to the
railroads and to the rivers less than 2,500,000 sagenes. It must be
added that of these same 2,500,000 sagenes the Soviet Administrations
were not able to transport to the cities and industrial centers more
than a very small quantity, and “even the minimum program of supply of
fuel for the factories of Moscow could not be carried out because of
the lack of means of transport.”

Bad as this is, the coal-supply is in a worse condition yet. “Things
are going badly for the production of coal and petroleum” we are told.
Upon their reoccupation of the Donetz Basin the Bolsheviki found coal
on the surface, ready to be shipped, which was estimated at 100,000,000
poods. “But until the reconstruction of bridges and re-establishment
of railroad communications in the Donetz territory these coal-supplies
cannot be utilized.” Of course the havoc wrought by war in the Donetz
Basin must be taken into account and full allowance made for it. But
what is the explanation of conditions in the coal-fields of the Moscow
region, which from the very first has been under Bolshevist rule, and
never included in the territory of war, civil or otherwise? Says Rykov:

The fields of Moscow not only have not given what they ought
to have given for the fuel-supply of Soviet Russia, but the
production of coal remained in 1919 at the same level as in
1918 and it did not reach the figure of 30,000,000 poods;
whereas, under the Czar at the time of the Imperialist War, the
Czar’s officials, with the aid of prisoners of war, knew how to
increase the production of coal in the Moscow fields to the
extent of 40,000,000 poods and even more.

This brings us face to face with the most vitally important fact
of all, namely, the relatively low productivity of labor under
nationalization of industry as practised in the sorry Utopia of the
Bolsheviki. This is evident in every branch of industry. “When we
speak, in the factories and mills, of the increase of the productivity
of labor, the workmen always answer us,” says Rykov, “with the same
demand and always present us with the same complaint, _Give us bread
and then we will work_.” But the demand for bread could not be met,
despite the fact that there was a considerable store of wheat and
other flour grains. Whereas at the beginning of 1919 there was a wheat
reserve of 60,000,000 poods, on January 1, 1920, the reserve was
90,000,000 poods. Rykov admits that this is really not a great deal,
and explains that in 1919 the government had only been able to collect
about half the wheat demanded from the peasants, despite the vigorous
policy pursued. He says that “in the grain elevators there are reserves
which assure the supply for workmen and peasants for three months.”
This calculation is based upon the near-famine rationing, for Rykov is
careful to add the words, “according to the official food rations.”

* * * * *

So, the whole reserve, if fairly distributed, would last until April.
But again the problem of transportation comes in: “If the workers and
peasants have until now received no bread, and if up to this time a
food shortage exists in the greater part of the starving consuming
localities, the cause does not lie in inadequate preparations, but in
the fact that we are unable to ship and distribute the grain already
carted and stored in the granaries.” As a result of these conditions
the workers in the factories at mass-meetings “demand the breach of the
economic front of Bolshevism,” that is to say, the re-establishment of
free and unrestricted commerce. In other words, their demand is for the
abolition of the nationalization policy. It is from the _proletariat_
that this cry comes, be it observed; and it is addressed to rulers
who claim to represent the “dictatorship of the proletariat”! Could
there be more conclusive evidence that Bolshevism in practice is the
dictatorship of a few men _over_ the proletariat?

What remedial measures does this important official, upon whom the
organization of the work of economic reconstruction chiefly depends,
propose to his colleagues? All that we get by way of specific and
definite plans is summed up in the following paragraph:

The Council of People’s Commissaries has already decided to
call upon individual workmen as well as groups of them to
repair the rolling-stock, granting them the right to use the
equipment which they shall have repaired with their own forces
for the transportation of food to those factories and mills
which repair the locomotives and cars. Recently this decision
has been also extended to the fuel-supply. Each factory and
each mill now has the opportunity to carry its own fuel,
provided they repair with their own forces the disabled
locomotives and cars they obtain from the commissariat of ways
and communications.

Was ever such madness as this let loose upon a suffering people? Let
those who have dilated upon the “statesmanship” and the “organizing
genius” of these men contemplate the picture presented by the decision
of the Council of People’s Commissaries. Each factory to repair with
its own forces the disabled locomotives and cars it needs to transport
fuel and raw materials. Textile-workers, for instance, must repair
locomotives and freight-cars or go without bread. Individual workmen
and groups of workmen and individual factories are thus to be turned
loose upon what remains of an organized transportation system. Not
only must this result in the completion of the destruction of railway
transportation, but it must inevitably cripple the factories. Take
workers from unrelated industries, unused to the job, and set them to
repairing locomotives and freight-cars; every man who has ever had
anything to do with the actual organization and direction of working
forces knows that such men, especially when the special equipment
and tools are lacking, cannot perform, man for man, one-tenth as
much as men used to the work and equipped with the proper tools and
equipment. And then to tell these factory workers that they have “the
right to use the equipment which they shall have repaired” means, if
it means anything at all, that from the factories are to be diverted
further forces to operate railway trains and collect food, fuel,
and raw materials. What that means we have already noted in the case
of the decline of production in the match-factories, “owing to the
wholesale dispersing of workmen in the search for bread, to field work
and unloading of wood.”[59] Of all the lunacy that has come out of
Bolshevist Russia, even, this is perhaps the worst.

[59] _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, No. 225.

Rykov tells us that at the end of 1919 4,000 industrial establishments
had been nationalized. “That means,” he says, “that nearly the
whole industry has been transferred to the state, to the Soviet
organizations, and that the industry of private owners, of
manufacturers, has been done away with, for the old statistics
estimated the total number of industrial establishments, including
peasants’ homework places, to be around 10,000. The peasants’ industry
is not subject to nationalization, and 4,000 nationalized industrial
establishments include not only the largest, but also the greater part
of the middle-sized, industrial enterprises of Soviet Russia.”

What is the state of these nationalized factories, and are the results
obtained satisfactory? Again Rykov’s report gives the answer in very
clear terms: “Of these 4,000 establishments only 2,000 are working at
present. All the rest are closed and idle. The number of workers, by a
rough estimate, is about 1,000,000. Thus you can see that both in point
of number of the working-men employed as well as in point of numbers
of still working establishments, the manufacturing industry is also in
the throes of a crisis.” The explanation offered by Trotsky, that the
industrial failure was due to the destruction of technical equipment,
Rykov sweeps aside. “_The Soviet state, the Workers’ and Peasants’
Power, could not utilize even those lathes, machines, and factory
equipment which were still at its disposal._ And a considerable part of
manufacturing enterprises was shut down, while part is still working
only in a few departments and workshops.” On every hand it is evident
that shortage of raw materials and of skilled labor are the really
important causes, not lack of machinery. Of 1,191 metallurgical plants
614 had been nationalized. The government had undertaken to provide
these with about 30 per cent. of the metals required, but had been able
to supply only 15 per cent., “less than one-quarter of the need that
must be satisfied in order to sustain a minimum of our industrial life.”

Take the textile industry as another example: Russia was the third
country in Europe in textile manufacture, England and Germany alone
leading her, the latter by no large margin. No lack of machinery
accounts for the failure here, for of the available looms only 11 per
cent. were used in 1919, and of the spindles only 7 per cent. The
decline of production in 1919 was enormous, so that at the end of that
year it was only 10 per cent. of the normal production. We are told
that: “During the period of January-March, 1919, 100,000 to 200,000
poods of textile fabrics were produced per month; during the period of
September-November only 25,000 to 68,000 poods were produced per month.
Therefore we have to face an almost complete stoppage of all textile
production in central Russia, which dominated all the other textile
regions in Russia.”

Rykov seems to have no illusions left concerning the prospects for the
immediate future. He realizes that Bolshevism has nothing to offer
the working-people of Russia in the way of immediate improvement. He
confesses “that in regard to industry the supplying of the population
with footwear, clothing, metals, and so on, Soviet Russia is living
only one-third of the life which Russia lived in times of peace.” As to
the future he has only this to say: “Such a condition might last one
or two years, during which we might live on former reserves, thanks to
that which remained from the preceding period of Russian history. But
these reserves are being exhausted and from one day to another, from
one hour to another, we are approaching a complete crisis in these
branches of industry.”

But what of the human element in industry, the workers themselves,
that class whose interests and aspirations Bolshevism is supposed to
represent? We have already noted Rykov’s admission that the workers and
peasants lack bread and his explanation. Upon this same matter, Tomsky,
president of the Central Council of the Trades-Unions, says:

So far as food-supplies are concerned it is evident that under
the present condition of transport we will not be able to
accumulate reserves of provisions sufficiently great so that
each workman may have a sufficient ration. We must renounce the
principle of equality in rationing and reduce the latter to
two or three categories of workman’s ration. We must recognize
that making our first steps upon the road of ameliorating the
situation of industrial workers, we must introduce a system
of so-called “supply of essential occupation.” “Above all, we
will have to supply those groups of workmen who are especially
necessary to production.”

Two and a quarter years after the forcible seizure of power by the
Bolsheviki one of their “statesmen” prates to his colleagues about
making the “first steps” toward “ameliorating the situation of
industrial workers.” The leading speakers who addressed the congress
discussed at length the bearing of these conditions upon what
Trotsky called “the dissipation of the working-class”--that is, the
disappearance of the proletariat from the industrial centers. Rykov
explained that:

The crisis of skilled labor has a special importance for our
industry, because even in those industrial branches which
work for our army we make vain efforts because of the lack of
qualified workmen. Sometimes for weeks and even entire months
we could not find the necessary number of workmen skilled and
knowing the trade of which the factories and mills had such
need, in order to give to the Red Army rifles, machine-guns,
and cannon and thereby save Moscow. We experienced enormous
difficulties to find even as few as twenty or thirty workmen.
We hunted for them everywhere, at the employment bureaus,
among trades-unions, in the regiments, and in the villages.
The wastage of the most precious element which production
calls for--that is to say, skilled labor--is one of the most
dangerous phenomena of our present economic life. This wastage
has reached to-day colossal and unheard-of dimensions and
_there are industrial enterprises which we cannot operate even
if we had fuel and raw materials, because competent skilled
labor is lacking_.

That Rykov is not an alarmist, that his statements are not exaggerated,
we may be quite assured. Even Trotsky protested that conditions were
worse than Rykov had described them, and not better. While Rykov
claimed that there were 1,000,000 workmen engaged in the nationalized
factories, Trotsky said that in reality there were not more than
850,000. But how is this serious decrease in the number of workmen to
be accounted for? An insatiable hunger, idle factories, unused raw
materials, a government eagerly seeking workmen, and yet the workmen
are not forthcoming. Trotsky offers this explanation: “Hunger, bad
living conditions, and cold drive the Russian workmen from industrial
centers to the rural districts, and not only to those districts, but
also _into the ranks of profiteers and parasites_.” Kamenev agrees
with Trotsky and says that “profiteering is the enemy whom the Moscow
proletariat has felt already for some time to be present, but who has
succeeded in growing up to full height and is now _eating up the entire
fabric of the new socialistic economic structure_.” Tomsky answers the
question in a very similar manner. He says:

If in capitalistic society a shortage of labor power marks the
most intensive activity of industry, in our own case this has
been caused by conditions which are unique and unprecedented in
capitalist economic experience. Only part of our industry is at
work, and yet there is a shortage of labor power felt in the
cities and industrial centers. We observe an exodus of laborers
from industrial centers, caused by poor living conditions.
Those hundreds of skilled laborers whom we are at present
lacking for the most elementary and minimal requirements of
industry have gone partly to the country, to labor communes,
Soviet farms, producers’ associations, while another part, a
very considerable one, serves in the army. _But the proletariat
also leaks away to join the ranks of petty profiteers and
barter-traders, we are ashamed and sorry to confess._ This fact
is being observed and there is no use concealing or denying
it. There is also another cause which hurts the industrial
life and hinders a systematic organization of work. This is
the migration of the workers from place to place in search of
better living conditions. All of this, again, is the result of
the one fundamental cause--the very critical food situation in
the cities and, in general, the hard conditions of life for the
industrial proletariat.

Finally, some attention must be given to the speech of Lenin, reported
in _Izvestia_, January 29, 1920. Discussing the question whether
industry should be administered by a “collegium” or by a single
individual clothed with absolute authority, Lenin defended the latter
as the only practical method, illustrating his case by reference to
the Red Army. The Soviet organization in the army was well enough at
first, as a start, but the system of administration has now become
“administration by a single individual as the only proper method of
work.” He explains this point in the following words:

Administration by “colleges” as the basic type of the
organization of the Soviet administration presents in itself
something fundamental and necessary for the first stage when it
is necessary to build anew. But with the establishing of more
stable forms, a transition to practical work is bound up with
administration by a single individual, a system which, most of
all, assures the best use of human powers and a real and not
verbal control of work.

Thus the master pronounces the doom of industrial Sovietism. No cry of,
“All power to the Soviets!” comes from his lips now, but only a demand
that the individual must be made all-powerful. Lenin the ruler pours
scorn upon the vision of Lenin the leader of revolt. His ideal now is
that of every industrial despot everywhere. He has no pity for the
toiler, but tells his followers that they must “replace the machines
which are lacking and those which are being destroyed by the strength
of the living laborer.” That means rope haulage instead of railway
transportation; it means that, instead of being masters of great
machines, the Russian toilers must replace the machines.

What a picture of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” these
utterances of the leading exponents of Bolshevism make! Proletarians
starving in a land of infinite abundance; forced by hunger, cold, and
oppression to leave homes and jobs and go back to village life, or,
much worse, to become either vagabonds or petty profiteers trafficking
in the misery of their fellows. Their tragic condition, worse than
anything they had to endure under czarism, suggests the lines:

The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But, swollen with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread.

We do not wonder at Krassin’s confession, published early this year
in the _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, urging “a friendly liquidation of
Bolshevism in Russia” and declaring that: “The Communistic régime
cannot restore the life of the country, and the fall of Bolshevism is
inevitable. The people are beginning to recognize that the Bolshevist
experiment has plunged them into a sea of blood and torment and aroused
no more than a feeling of fatigue and disappointment.”

Here, then, is a picture of nationalized industry under Bolshevism,
drawn by no unfriendly or malicious critic, but by its own stout
upholders, its ablest champions. It is a self-portrait, an
autobiographical sketch. In it we can see Bolshevism as it is, a
repellent and terrifying thing of malefic might and purpose. Possessed
of every vice and every weakness of capitalism, with none of its
virtues, Bolshevism is abhorrent to all who love liberty and hold faith
in mankind. Promising plenty, it gives only famine; promising freedom,
it gives only fetters; promising love, it gives only hate; promising
order, it gives only chaos; promising righteous and just government,
it gives only corrupt despotism; promising fraternity, it gives only
fratricide.

Yet, despite the overwhelming mass of evidence, there will still be
defenders and apologists of this monstrous perversion of the democratic
Socialist ideal. We shall be told that the Bolsheviki have had to
contend against insurmountable obstacles; that when they entered into
power they found the industrial system already greatly demoralized;
that they have been compelled to devote themselves to war instead of
to reconstruction; that they have been isolated and deprived of those
things with which other nations hitherto supplied Russia.

All these things are true, but in what way do they excuse or palliate
the crimes of the Bolsheviki? When they overthrew the Provisional
Government and by brute force usurped its place they knew that the
industrial life of the nation, including the transportation system,
had been gravely injured. They knew, moreover, that it was recovering
and that its complete restoration could only be brought about by the
united effort of all the freedom-loving elements in the land. They
knew, or ought to have known, just as every sane person in and out of
Russia knew, that if they deserted the Allies in the time of their
gravest peril, and, by making peace with Germany, aided her upon the
western front, the Allies would not--could not and dare not--continue
to maintain their friendly and co-operative relations with Russia.
They knew, or ought to have known, as every sane person in and out of
Russia did, that if they tried to impose their rule upon the nation by
force of arms, they would be resisted and there would be civil war.
All these things Lenin and his followers had pointed out to them by
clear-visioned Socialists. All of them are written large upon history’s
pages.

No defense of Bolshevism has yet been made which is not itself an
accusation.

FREEDOM OF PRESS AND ASSEMBLY

In 1903, after the split of the Russian Social Democratic Party
into two factions--the Bolsheviki and the Mensheviki--the late Rosa
Luxemburg, in an article which she contributed to _Iskra_ (_Spark_),
gave a keen analysis of Lenin. She charged that he was an autocrat at
heart, that he despised the workers and their rights. In burning words
she protested that Lenin wanted to rule Russia with an iron fist,
to replace one czarism by another. Now, Rosa Luxemburg was no “mere
bourgeois reformer,” no “sentimental opportunist”; even at that time
she was known in the international Socialist movement as “Red Rosa,”
a revolutionist among revolutionists, one of the reddest of them all.
Hating despotism and autocracy as such, and not merely the particular
manifestation of it in the Romanov régime, she saw quite clearly,
and protested against, the contempt for democracy and all its ways
which, even at that time, she recognized as underlying Lenin’s whole
conception of the revolutionary struggle.

A very similar estimate of Lenin was made ten years later, in 1913,
by one of his associates, P. Rappaport. When we remember that it was
written a year before the World War began, and five years before the
outbreak of the Russian Revolution in March, 1917, this estimate of
Lenin, written by Rappaport in 1913, is remarkable: “No party in the
world could live under the régime of the Czar Social Democrat, who
calls himself a liberal Marxist, and who is only a political adventurer
on a grand scale.”

These estimates of Lenin by fellow-Socialists who knew him well, and
who were thoroughly familiar with his thought, possess no small amount
of interest to-day. Of course, we are concerned with the individual
and with the motivation of his thought and actions only in so far as
the individual asserts an influence upon contemporary developments,
either directly, by deeds of his own, or indirectly through others.
There is much significance in the fact that “Bolshevism” and “Leninism”
are already in use as synonyms, indicating that a movement which has
spread with great rapidity over a large part of the world is currently
regarded as exemplifying the thought and the purpose of the man,
Ulianov, whom posterity, like his contemporaries, will know best by
his pseudonym. Nicolai Lenin’s contempt for democratic ways, and his
admiration for autocratic and despotic ways, are thus of historical
importance.

There was much that was infamous in the régime of the last of the
Romanovs, Nicholas II, but by comparison with that of his successor,
“Nicholas III,” it was a régime of benignity, benevolence, and
freedom. No government that has been set up in modern times, among
civilized peoples, has been so thoroughly tyrannical, so intolerant and
hostile to essential freedom, as the government which the Bolsheviki
established in Russia by usurpation of power and have maintained thus
far by a relentless and conscienceless use of every instrumentality
of oppression and suppression known to the hated Romanovs. _Without
mandate of authority from the people, or even any considerable part of
the people, this brutal power dissolved the Constituent Assembly and
annulled all its acts; chose its own agents and conferred upon them the
title of representatives of the people; disbanded the courts of law and
substituted therefor arbitrary tribunals, clothed with unlimited power;
without semblance of lawful trial, sentenced men and women to death,
many of them not even accused of any crime whatsoever; seized innocent
men, women, and children as hostages for the conduct of others;
shot and otherwise executed innocent persons, including women and
children, for crimes and offenses of others, of which they admittedly
knew nothing; deprived citizens of freedom, and imprisoned them in
vile dungeons, for no crime save written or spoken appeal in defense
of lawful rights; arbitrarily suppressed the existing freedom of
assemblage and of publication; based civic rights upon the acceptance
of particular beliefs; by arbitrary decree levied unjust, unequal, and
discriminatory taxes; filled the land with hireling secret spies and
informers; imposed a constitution and laws upon the people without
their consent, binding upon the people, but not upon itself; placed the
public revenues at the disposal of a political faction representing
only a minority of the people; and, finally, by a decree restored
involuntary servitude._

This formidable indictment is no more than a mere outline sketch of
the despotism under which Russia has suffered since November, 1917.
There is not a clause in the indictment which is not fully sustained by
the evidence given in these pages. Lenin is fond of quoting a saying
of Marx that, “The domination of the proletariat can most easily be
accomplished in a war-weary country--_i.e._, in a worn-out, will-less,
and weakened land.” He and his associates found Russia war weary, worn
out, and weakened indeed, but not “will-less.” On the contrary, the
great giant, staggering from the weakness and weariness arising from
years of terrible struggle, urged by a mighty will to make secure the
newly conquered freedom, was already turning again to labor, to restore
industry and build a prosperous nation. By resorting to the methods
and instrumentalities which tyrants in all ages have used to crush the
peoples rightly struggling to be free, the Bolsheviki have imposed upon
Russia a tyranny greater than the old. That they have done this in the
name of liberty in no wise mitigates their crime, but, on the contrary,
adds to it. The classic words of the English seventeenth-century
pamphleteer come to mind: “Almost all tyrants have been first captains
and generals for the people, under pretense of vindicating or defending
their liberties.... Tyrants accomplish their ends much more by fraud
than force ... with cunning, plausible pretenses to impose upon men’s
understandings, and in the end they master those that had so little
wit as to rely upon their faith and integrity.”

The greatest liberty of all, that liberty upon which all other
liberties must rest, and without which men are slaves, no matter by
what high-sounding names they may be designated, is the liberty of
discussion. Perhaps no people in the world have realized this to
the same extent as the great Anglo-Saxon peoples, or have been so
solicitous in maintaining it. Only the French have approached us in
this respect. The immortal words of a still greater seventeenth-century
pamphleteer constitute a part of the moral and political heritage of
our race. Who does not thrill at Milton’s words, “Give me the liberty
to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above
all liberties.” That fine declaration was the inspiration of Patrick
Henry’s sublime demand, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Upon that
rock, and that rock alone, was built “government of the people, by the
people, and for the people.”

The manner in which the Bolsheviki have stifled protest, discussion,
and appeal through the suppression of the opposition newspapers
constitutes one of the worst chapters in their infamous history. Yet,
strangely enough, of such perversity is the human mind capable, they
have found their chief defenders, outside of Russia, among individuals
and groups devoted to the upholding of popular liberties. Let us
take, for example, the case of Mr. William Hard and his laborious and
ingenious--though disingenuous--articles in defense of the Bolsheviki,
published in the _New Republic_ and elsewhere:

In an earlier volume,[60] written at the close of 1918, and published
in March, 1919, the present writer said of the Bolsheviki, “When they
came into power they suppressed all non-Bolshevist papers in a manner
differing not at all from that of the Czar’s régime, forcing the other
Socialist partizan groups to resort to pre-Revolution underground
methods.” The statement that the “other Socialist partizan groups”
were forced to “resort to pre-Revolution underground methods,” made in
the connection it was, conveyed to every person reading that paragraph
who knew anything at all of the history of the Russian revolutionary
struggle the information that the statement that the Bolsheviki
“suppressed all non-Bolshevist papers” was not to be interpreted
as meaning the suppression was absolute. Even if it had not been
pointed out elsewhere--as it was, upon the authority of a famous
Socialist-Revolutionist--that in some instances suppressed papers
managed to appear in spite of the authorities, simply changing their
names, _precisely as they had done under czarism_, the statement quoted
above would have been justified as a substantially correct statement of
the facts, particularly in view of the boast of responsible Bolsheviki
themselves that they had suppressed the entire opposition press and
that only the Bolshevist press remained. Certainly when one speaks or
writes of the suppression of newspapers under czarism one does not
deny that the revolutionists from time to time found ways and means
of circumventing the authorities, and that it was more or less common
for such suppressed newspapers to reappear under new names. The
whole point of the paragraph in question was that the characteristic
conditions of czarism had been restored.

[60] _Bolshevism_, by John Spargo, New York, 1919.

With a mental agility more admirable than either his controversial
manners or his political morals, by a distortion of facts worthy of his
mentors, but not of himself or of his reputation, Mr. Hard makes it
appear that the Bolsheviki only suppressed the opposition newspapers
after the middle of 1918, when, as he alleges, the opposition to the
Bolsheviki assumed the character of “open acute civil war.” Mr. Hard
admits that prior to this time there were suppressions and that “if any
paper tried not merely to criticize the Lenin administration, but to
utterly destroy the Bolshevik Soviet idea of the state, its editor was
likely to find his publishing life quite frequently interrupted.”

Now the facts in the case are as different from Mr. Hard’s presentation
as a normal mind can well conceive. Mr. David N. Shub, a competent
authority, made an exhaustive reply to Mr. Hard’s article, a reply
that was an exposure, in the columns of _Struggling Russia_. Before
reproducing Mr. Shub’s reply it may be well to set forth a few facts
of record which are of fundamental importance: _On the very day on
which the Bolsheviki published the decree on the establishment of the
Soviet power, November 10, 1917, they published also a decree directed
against the freedom of the press._ The decree proper was accompanied
by a characteristic explanatory statement. This statement recited that
it had been necessary for the Temporary Revolutionary Committee to
“adopt a series of measures against the counter-revolutionary press
of various shades”; that protests had been made on all sides against
this as a violation of the program which provided for the freedom of
the press; repressive measures were temporary and precautionary, and
that they would cease and complete freedom be given to the press, in
accordance with the widest and most progressive law, “as soon as the
new régime takes firm root.” The decree proper read:

I. Only those organs of the press will be suspended

(_a_) Which appeal for open resistance to the government
of workmen and peasants.

(_b_) Which foment disorders by slanderously falsifying
facts.

(_c_) Which incite to criminal acts--_i.e._, acts within
the jurisdiction of the police courts.

II. Provisional or definitive suspension can be executed
only by order of the Council of People’s Commissaries.

III. These regulations are only of a provisional nature
and shall be abrogated by a special ukase when
life has returned to normal conditions.

If Mr. Hard or any of the numerous journalistic apologists of
the Bolsheviki in this country will look the matter up he or
they will find that this decree copied the forms usually used
by the Czar’s government. It is noteworthy that the restoration
of freedom of the press was already made dependent upon that
czaristic instrument, the _ukase_. On the 16th of November the
Central Executive Committee of the Soviets adopted a resolution
which read:

The closure of the bourgeois papers was caused not only by
the purely fighting requirements in the period of the rising
and the suppression of counter-revolutionary attempts, but
likewise as a necessary temporary measure for the establishment
of a new régime in the sphere of the press, under which the
capital proprietors of printing-works and paper would not be
able to become autocratic beguilers of public opinion....
The re-establishment of the so-called freedom of the press,
_viz._, the simple return of printing-offices and paper to
capitalists, poisoners of the people’s conscience, would be
an unpermissible surrender to the will of capital--_i.e._, a
counter-revolutionary measure.

At the meeting when this resolution was adopted, and speaking in its
support, Trotsky made a speech remarkable for its cynical dishonesty
and its sinister menace. He said, according to the report in _Pravda_
two days later:

_Those measures which are employed to frighten individuals must
be applied to the press also...._ All the resources of the
press must be handed over to the Soviet Power. You say that
formerly we demanded freedom of the press for the _Pravda_? But
then we were in a position to demand a minimum program; now we
insist on the maximum program. _When the power was in the hands
of the bourgeoisie we demanded juridical freedom of the press._
When the power is held by the workmen and peasants--we must
create conditions for the freedom of the press.

Quite obviously, as shown by their own official reports, Mr. Hard and
gentlemen of the _New Republic_, Mr. Oswald Villard and gentlemen
of _The Nation_, and you, too, Mr. Norman Thomas, who find Mr.
Hard’s disingenuous pleading so convincing,[61] the hostility of
the Bolsheviki to freedom of the press was manifest from the very
beginning of their rule. On the night of November 30th ten important
newspapers were suppressed and their offices closed, among them being
six Socialist newspapers. Their offense lay in the fact that they urged
their readers to stand by the Constituent Assembly. Not only were the
papers suppressed and their offices closed, but the best equipped of
them all was “requisitioned” for the use of a Bolshevist paper, the
_Soldatskaia Pravda_. The names of the newspapers were: _Nasha Rech_,
_Sovremennoie Delo_, _Utro_, _Rabochaia Gazeta_, _Volia Naroda_,
_Trudovoe Slovo_, _Edinstvo_, and _Rabotcheie Delo_. The suppression
of the _Rabochaia Gazeta_, official organ of the Central Committee
of the Social Democratic Party, caused a vigorous protest and the
Central Committee of the party decided “to bring to the knowledge of
all the members of the party that the central organ of the party, the
_Rabochaia Gazeta_, is closed by the Military Revolutionary Committee.
While branding this as an arbitrary act in defiance of the Russian
and international proletariat, committed by so-called Socialists on
a Social-Democrat paper and the Labor Party, whose organ it is, the
Central Committee has decided to call upon the party to organize a
movement of protest against this act in order to open the eyes of the
labor masses to the character of the régime which governs the country.”

[61] See _The World Tomorrow_, February, 1920, p. 61.

In consequence of the tremendous volume of protest and through the
general adoption of the devices familiar to the revolutionaries under
czarism--using new names, changing printing-offices, and the like--most
of the papers reappeared for a brief while in one form or another.
But in February, 1918, all the anti-Bolshevist papers were again
suppressed, save one, the principal organ of the Cadets, formerly the
_Rech_, but later appearing as the _Nash Viek_. This paper was suffered
to appear for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained.
Mr. Shub’s article contains a detailed, though by no means full,
account of the further suppressions:

A few days after the Bolshevist coup, in November, 1917,
the Bolsheviki closed down, among others, the organ of
the Mensheviki-Internationalists, _Rabochaya Gazeta_; the
central organ of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists,
_Dyelo Naroda_; the _Volia Naroda_, published by Catherine
Breshkovsky; the _Yedinstvo_, published by George Plechanov;
the _Russkaya Volia_, published by Leonid Andreiev; the
_Narodnoye Slovo_, the organ of the People’s Socialists, and
the _Dien_, published by the well-known Social-Democrat,
Alexander Potresov.

The printing-presses which belonged to Andreiev were
confiscated and his paper, _Russkaya Volia, never again
appeared under any other name_. The editor-in-chief of
the _Volia Naroda_--the newspaper published by Catherine
Breshkovsky--A. Agunov, was incarcerated by the Bolsheviki
in the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul and this paper was
_never able to appear again, even under a changed name_.
The offices of the _Dyelo Naroda_ were for a time guarded
by groups of armed soldiers in sympathy with the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionists, and notwithstanding all orders
by the Commissary of the Press to cease publication, the
Socialists-Revolutionists managed from time to time to issue
their newspapers, in irregular form, under one name or another.
But the copies of the paper would be confiscated from the
newsdealers immediately upon their appearance, and the newsboys
who risked the selling of it were subjected to unbelievable
persecutions. There were even cases when the sellers of these
“seditious” Socialist papers were shot by the Bolsheviki. These
facts were recorded by every newspaper which appeared from time
to time in those days in Petrograd and Moscow.

The _Dien_ (_Day_) did not appear at all for some time after
its suppression. Later there appeared in its place the
_Polnotch_ (_Midnight_), which was immediately suppressed for
publishing an exposé of the Bolshevist Commissary, Lieutenant
Schneuer, an ex-provocateur of the Tzar’s government and a
German spy, the same Schneuer who conducted negotiations with
the German command for an armistice, and who later, together
with Krylenko, led the orgy called “the capture of the General
Headquarters,” in the course of which General Dukhonine, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, was brutally murdered
and mutilated for his refusal to conclude an armistice with the
Germans.

A few days after the _Polnotch_ was closed another paper
appeared in its place, called _Notch_ (_Night_), but this one
was just as rapidly suppressed. Again _V Glookhooyou Notch_
(_In the Thick of Night_) appeared for a brief period, and
still later _V Temnooyou Notch_ (_In the Dark of Night_). The
paper was thus appearing once a week, and sometimes once every
other week, under different names. I have all these papers
in my possession, and their contents and fate would readily
convince the reader how “tolerantly” the Bolsheviki, in the
early days of their “rule,” treated the adverse opinions of
even such leading Socialists as Alexander Potresov, one of the
founders of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party, who, for
decades, was one of the editors of the central organs of the
party.

The publication of G. V. Plechanov’s--Russia’s greatest
Socialist writer and leader--the _Yedinstvo_, after it was
suppressed, appeared in the end of December, 1917, under the
name _Nashe Yedinstvo_, but was closed down in January, 1918,
and the Bolsheviki _confiscated its funds kept in a bank and
ordered the confiscation of all moneys coming in by mail to its
office_. This information was even cabled to New York by the
Petrograd correspondent of the New York Jewish pro-Bolshevist
newspaper, the _Daily Forward_. The _Nashe Yedinstvo_, at
the head of which, besides George Plechanov, there were such
widely known Russian revolutionists and Socialists as Leo
Deutsch, Vera Zasulitch, Dr. N. Vassilyev, L. Axelrod-Orthodox,
and Gregory Alexinsky, was thus permanently destroyed by the
Bolsheviki in January, or early in February, 1918, and never
appeared again under any other name.

The newspapers _Dien_, _Dyelo Naroda_, the Menshevist _Novy
Looch_, and a few others did make an attempt to appear later,
but on the eve of the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty
_all_ oppositional Socialist newspapers were again suppressed
wholesale. In the underground Socialist bulletins, which were
at that time being published by the Socialists-Revolutionists
and Social Democrats, it was stated that this move was carried
out by order of the German General Staff. The prominent Social
Democrat and Internationalist, L. Martov, later, at an open
meeting of the Soviet, flung this accusation in the face of
Lenin, _who never replied to it by either word or pen_.

When the Germans, after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, still
continued their offensive movement, occupying one Russian city
after another, and the Bolsheviki had reasons to believe that
they were nearing their end, they somewhat relaxed their régime
and some newspapers obtained the possibility of appearing
again, _on condition that all such newspapers, under threat
of fine and confiscation, were to print on their first pages
all the Bolshevist decrees and all distorted information and
explanations by the Bolshevist commissaries_. Aside from that,
the press was subject to huge fines for every bit of news
that did not please the eye of the Bolshevist censor. Thus,
for instance, _Novaya Zhizn_, Gorky’s organ, was fined 35,000
rubles for a certain piece of “unfavorable” news which it
printed.

However, early in May, 1918--_i.e._, _before the beginning
of the so-called “intervention” by the Allies_--even this
measure of “freedom” of the press appeared too frivolous for
the Bolshevist commissaries, and they permanently closed down
_Dyelo Naroda_, _Dien_, and _Novy Looch_, and, somewhat later,
all the remaining opposition papers, including Gorky’s _Novaya
Zhizn_, and since that time none of them have reappeared. In
spite of endless attempts, Maxim Gorky did not succeed in
obtaining permission to establish his paper even six months
afterward, when he had officially made peace with the Soviet
régime. The Bolsheviki are afraid of the free speech of even
their official “friends,” and that is the true reason why there
is not in Soviet Russia to-day a single independent organ of
the press.[62]

[62] April, 1919.

With one kick of the Red Army boot was thus destroyed Russia’s
greatest treasure, her independent press. The oldest and
greatest founts of Russian culture and social justice, such
as the monthly magazine, _Russkoye Bogatstvo_, and the daily
_Russkya Viedomosti_, which even the Czar’s government never
dared to suppress permanently, were brutally strangled. These
organs have raised entire generations of Russian radicals
and Socialists and had among their contributors and editors
the greatest savants, publicists, and journalists of Russia,
such as Nicholas Chernishevsky, Glieb Uspensky, Nicholas
Mikhailovsky, N. Zlatovratsky, Ilya Metchnikov, Professor N.
Kareiev, Vladimir Korolenko, Peter Kropotkin, and numerous
others.

Let us look at the subject from a slightly different angle: one
of the first things they did was to declare the “nationalization”
of the printing-establishments of certain newspapers, which they
immediately turned over to their own press. In this manner the
printing-establishment of the _Novoye Vremia_ was seized and used
for the publication of _Izvestia_ and _Pravda_, the latter being an
organ of the party and not of the government. Here was a new form of
political nepotism which a Tweed might well envy and only a Nash could
portray. We are at the beginning of the nepotism, however. On November
20, 1917, the advertising monopoly was decreed, and on December 10th
following it went into effect. This measure forbade the printing of
advertisements in any except the official journals, thereby cutting off
the revenue from advertising, upon which newspapers depend, from all
except official journals. This measure alone had the effect of limiting
the possibility of publication practically to the official papers and
those which were heavily subsidized. Moreover, the Bolsheviki used the
public revenues to subsidize their own newspapers. They raised the
postal rates for sending newspapers by mail to a prohibitive height,
and then carried the newspapers of their own partizans free of charge
at the public expense. They “nationalized” the sale of newspapers,
which made it unlawful for unauthorized persons to obtain and offer for
sale any save the official Bolshevist newspapers and those newspapers
published by its partizans which supported the government. The decree
forbade taking subscriptions for the “unauthorized” papers at the
post-offices, in accordance with custom, forbade their circulation
through the mails, and imposed a special tax upon such as were
permitted to appear. Article III of this wonderful decree reads:

Subscriptions to the bourgeois and pseudo-Socialist newspapers
are suppressed and will not hereafter be accepted at the
post-office. Issues of these journals that may be mailed will
not be delivered at their destination.

Newspapers of the bourgeoisie will be subject to a tax
which may be as great as three rubles for each number.
Pseudo-Socialist journals such as the _V period_ and the _Troud
Vlast Naroda_[63] will be subject to the same tax.

[63] These were organs of the Mensheviki and the Social Revolutionists.

Is it any wonder that by the latter part of May, 1918, the
anti-Bolshevist press had been almost entirely exterminated except
for the fitful and irregular appearance of papers published
surreptitiously, and the few others whose appearance was due to the
venality of some Bolshevist officials? Was there ever, in the history
of any nation, since Gutenberg’s invention of movable type made
newspapers possible, such organized political nepotism? Was there ever,
since men organized governments, anything more subversive of freedom
and political morality? Yet there is worse to come; as time went on,
new devices suggested themselves to these perverters of democracy
and corrupters of government. On July 27, 1918, _Izvestia_ published
the information that the press department would grant permits for
periodical publications, _provided they accepted the Soviet platform_.
In carrying out this arrangement, so essentially despotic, the press
department reserved to itself the right to determine _whether or not
the population was in need of the proposed publication_, whether it was
advisable to permit the use of any of the available paper-supply for
the purpose, and so forth and so on. Under this arrangement permission
was given to publish a paper called the _Mir_. Ostensibly a pacifist
paper, the _Mir_ was very cordially welcomed by the Bolshevist papers
to the confraternity of privileged journals. That the _Mir_ was
subsidized by the German Government for the propaganda of international
pacificism (this was in the summer of 1918) seems to have been
established.[64] The closing chapter of the history of this paper is
told in the following extract from _Izvestia_, October 17, 1918, which
is more interesting for its disclosures of Bolshevist mentality than
anything else:

[64] See Dumas, _op. cit._, p. 80.

The suppression of the paper _Mir_ (_Peace_).--In accordance
with the decision published in the _Izvestia_ on the 27th
July, No. 159, the Press Department granted permits to
issue _to periodical publications which accepted the Soviet
platform_. When granting permission the Press Department took
into consideration the available supplies of paper, _whether
the population was in need of the proposed periodical
publication_, and also the necessity of providing employment
for printers and pressmen. Thus permission was granted to
issue the paper _Mir_, especially in view of the publisher’s
declaration that the paper was intended to propagate pacifist
ideas. At the present moment _the requirements of the
population of the Federal Socialist Republic for means of daily
information are adequately met by the Soviet publications_;
employment for those engaged in journalistic work is secured
in the Soviet papers; a paper crisis is approaching. The Press
Department, therefore, considers it impossible to permit the
further publication of the _Mir_ and has decided to _suppress
this paper forever_.

Another device which the Bolsheviki resorted to was the compulsion of
people to purchase the official newspapers, whether they wanted them or
not. On July 20, 1918, there was published “Obligatory Regulation No.
27,” which provided for the compulsory purchase by all householders of
the _Severnaya Communa_. This unique regulation read as follows:

OBLIGATORY REGULATION NO. 27

Every house committee in the city of Petrograd and other towns
included in the Union of Communes of the Northern Region is
under obligation to subscribe to, paying for same, one copy of
the newspaper, the _Severnaya Communa_, the official organ of
the Soviets of the Northern Region.

The newspaper should be given to every resident in the house on
the first demand.

Chairman of the Union of the Communes of the Northern region,
Gr. Zinoviev.

Commissary of printing, N. Kuzmin.

The _Severnaya Communa_, on November 10, 1918, published the following
with reference to this beautiful scheme:

To the Notice of the House Committees of the Poor:

On 20th July of the present year there was published obligatory
regulation No. 27, to the following effect:

“Every house committee in the city of Petrograd and other towns
included in the Union of Communes of the Northern Region is
under obligation to subscribe to, paying for same, one copy of
the newspaper, the _Severnaya Communa_, the official organ of
the Soviets of the Northern Region.

“The newspaper should be given to every resident in the house
on the first demand.

“Chairman of the Union of the Communes of the Northern region,
Gr. Zinoviev.

“Commissary of printing, N. Kuzmin.”

However, until now the majority of houses inhabited mainly by the
bourgeoisie do not fulfil the above-expressed obligatory regulation,
and the working population of such houses is deprived of the
possibility of receiving the _Severnaya Communa_ in its house
committees.

Therefore, the publishing office of the _Severnaya Communa_ brings to
the notice of all house committees that it has undertaken, through
the medium of especial emissaries, the control of the fulfilment by
house committees of the obligatory regulation No. 27, and all house
committees which cannot show a receipt for a subscription to the
newspaper, the _Severnaya Communa_, will be immediately called to the
most severe account for the breaking of the obligatory regulation.

Subscriptions will be received in the main office and branches of the
_Severnaya Communa_ daily, except Sundays and holidays, from 10 to 4.

After this it is something of an anticlimax to even take note of
the tremendous power wielded by the Revolutionary Tribunal of the
Press, Section of Political Crimes, which was created in March, 1918.
The decree relating to this body and outlining its functions, dated
December 18, 1917, read as follows:

THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL OF THE PRESS

1. Under the Revolutionary Tribunal is created a Revolutionary
Tribunal of the Press. This Tribunal will have jurisdiction of
crimes and offenses against the people committed by means of
the press.

2. Crimes and offenses by means of the press are the
publication and circulation of any false or perverted reports
and information about events of public life, in so far as they
constitute an attempt upon the rights and interests of the
revolutionary people.

3. The Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press consists of three
members, elected for a period not longer than three months by
the Soviet of Workmen’s, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies.
These members are charged with the conduct of the preliminary
investigation as well as the trial of the case.

4. The following serve as grounds for instituting proceedings:
reports of legal or administrative institutions, public
organizations, or private persons.

5. The prosecution and defense are conducted on the principles
laid down in the instructions to the general Revolutionary
Tribunal.

6. The sessions of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press are
public.

7. The decisions of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press are
final and are not subject to appeal.

8. The Revolutionary Tribunal imposes the following penalties:
(1) fine; (2) expression of public censure, which the convicted
organ of the Press brings to the general knowledge in a way
indicated by the Tribunal; (3) the publication in a prominent
place or in a special edition of a denial of the false report;
(4) temporary or permanent suppression of the publication or
its exclusion from circulation; (5) confiscation to national
ownership of the printing-shop or property of the organ of the
Press if it belongs to the convicted parties.

9. The trial of an organ of the Press by the Revolutionary
Tribunal of the Press does not absolve the guilty persons from
general criminal responsibility.

Under the provisions of this body the newspapers which were appearing
found themselves subject to a new terror. An offensive reference to
Trotsky caused the _Outre Rossii_ to be mulcted to the extent of 10,000
rubles. Even the redoubtable Martov was punished and the _Vperiod_,
organ of the Social Democratic Party, suppressed. The _Nache Slovo_
was fined 25,000 rubles and the _Ranee Outre_ was mulcted in a like
amount for printing a news article concerning some use of the Lettish
sharp-shooters by the Bolsheviki, though there was no denial that the
facts were as stated. It was a common practice to impose fines of
anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 rubles upon papers which had indulged
in criticism of the government or anything that could be construed as
“an offense against the people” or “an attempt upon the rights and
interests of the revolutionary people.”

Here, then, is a summary of the manner in which the Bolsheviki have
suppressed the freedom of the press. It is a record which cannot be
equaled, nor approached, in all the history of Russia during the reign
of Nicholas Romanov II. Mr. Hard attempts to cover the issue with
confusion by asking, “Is there any government in the world that permits
pro-enemy papers to be printed within its territory during a civil
war?” and he is applauded by the entire claque of so-called “Liberal”
and “Radical” pro-Bolshevist journals. It was done in this country
during the War of the Rebellion, Mr. Hard; it has been done in Ireland
under “British tyranny.” The Bolshevist records show, first, that the
suppression of non-Bolshevist journals was carried out upon a wholesale
scale when there was no state of civil war, no armed resistance to
the Bolsheviki; that it was, in fact, carried out upon a large scale
during the period when preparations were being made for holding the
Constituent Assembly which the Bolsheviki themselves, in repeated
official declarations, had sworn to uphold and defend. The records
show, furthermore, that the Bolsheviki sought not merely to suppress
those journals which were urging civil war, but that, as a matter of
fact, they suppressed the papers which urged the contrary--that is,
that the civil war be brought to an end. The _Vsiegda Vperiod_ is a
case in point. In February, 1919, the Central Executive Committee of
the Soviets announced that it had confirmed the decision to close this
newspaper, “_as its appeals for the cessation of civil war appear to be
a betrayal of the working-class_.”

No, Mr. Hard. No, Mr. Oswald Villard. No, Mr. Norman Thomas. No,
gentlemen of the _New Republic_. No, gentlemen of _The Nation_.
There can be no escape through the channels of such juggling with
facts. When you defend the Bolshevist régime you defend a monstrous
organized oppression, and you thereby disqualify yourselves to set
up as champions and defenders of Freedom. When you protest against
restrictions of popular liberties here the red ironic laughter of the
tyrants you have defended drowns the sound of your voices. When you
speak fair words for Freedom in America your fellow-men hear only
the echoes of your louder words spoken for tyranny in Russia. You
do not approach the bar with clean hands and clean consciences. You
are forsworn. By what right shall you who have defended Bolshevism
in Russia, with all its brutal tyranny, its loathsome corruption,
its unrestrained reign of hatred, presume to protest when Liberty is
assailed in America? Those among us who have protested against every
invasion of popular liberties at home, and have at the same time been
loyal to our comrades in Russia who have so bravely resisted tyranny,
have the right to enter the lists in defense of Freedom in America, and
to raise our voices when that Freedom is assailed. You have not that
right, gentlemen; you cannot speak for Freedom, in America or anywhere
else, without bringing shame upon her.

In all the platforms and programs of the Socialist parties of the
world, without a single exception, the demand for freedom of the press
has held a prominent place. No accredited spokesmen of the Socialist
movement, anywhere, at any time, has suggested that this demand was
made with mental reservations of any kind, or that when Socialists
came into power they would suppress the publication of views hostile
to their own, or the views of parties struggling to introduce other
changes. Yet we find Lenin at the meeting of the Central Executive
Committee of the Soviets held on November 18, 1917, saying: “We, the
Bolsheviki, have always said that when we came into power we would
shut down the bourgeois newspapers. To tolerate bourgeois newspapers
is to quit being Socialists.” And Trotsky supported this position and
affirmed it as his own.

We have here only the beginnings of a confession of moral bankruptcy,
of long-continued, systematic, studied misrepresentation of their
purpose and deception of their comrades and of all who believed the
words they said, unsuspecting the serious reservations back of the
words. _Theses Respecting the Social Revolution and the Tasks of
the Proletariat During Its Dictatorship in Russia_ is, as might be
inferred from its title, a characteristic piece of Lenin’s medieval
scholasticism, in which, with ponderous verbosity, he explains and
interprets Bolshevism. Let us consider _Theses_ Nos. 17, 18, 19, and 20:

(17) The former demands for a democratic republic, and general
freedom (that is freedom for the middle classes as well),
were quite correct in the epoch that is now past, the epoch
of preparation and gathering of strength. _The worker needed
freedom for his press, while the middle-class press was noxious
to him, but he could not at this time put forward a demand
for the suppression of the middle-class press._ Consequently,
the proletariat demanded general freedom, even freedom for
reactionary assemblies, for black labor organizations.

(18) Now we are in the period of the direct attack on capital,
the direct overthrow and destruction of the imperialist robber
state, and the direct suppression of the middle class. It is,
therefore, absolutely clear that in the present epoch the
principle of defending general freedom (that is also for the
counter-revolutionary middle class) is not only superfluous,
but directly dangerous.

(19) This also holds good for the press, and the leading
organizations of the social traitors. The latter have been
unmasked as the active elements of the counter-revolution.
They even attack with weapons the proletarian government.
Supported by former officers and the money-bags of the defeated
finance capital, they appear on the scene as the most energetic
organizations for various conspiracies. The proletariat
dictatorship is their deadly enemy. Therefore, they must be
dealt with in a corresponding manner.

(20) As regards the working-class and the poor peasants, these
possess the fullest freedom.

What have we here? One reads these paragraphs and is stunned by them;
repeated readings are necessary. We are told, in fact, that all the
demands for freedom of the press, including the bourgeois press, made
by Socialists out of office, during the period of their struggle, were
hypocritical; that the demand for freedom for all was made for no other
reason than the inability of those making it to secure their freedom by
themselves and apart from the general freedom; that there was always
an unconfessed desire and intention to use the power gained through
the freedom thus acquired to suppress the freedom already possessed
by others. What a monstrous confession of duplicity and deceit long
practised, and what a burden of suspicion and doubt it imposes upon
all who hereafter in the name of Socialism urge the freedom of the
press.[65]

[65] See Kautsky, _The Dictatorship of the Proletariat_.

Let us hear from another leading Bolshevist luminary, Bucharin, who
shares with Lenin the heaviest tasks of expounding Bolshevist theories
and who is in some respects a rival theologian. In July, 1918, Bucharin
published his pamphlet, _The Program of the Communists_, authorized
by the Communist Party, of whose organ, _Pravda_, he is the editor. A
revolutionary organization in this country published the greater part
of this pamphlet, and it is significant that it omitted Chapter VII,
in which Bucharin reveals precisely the same attitude as Lenin. He
goes farther in that he admits the same insincerity of attitude toward
equal suffrage and the Constituent Assembly based on the will of the
majority. He says:

If we have a dictatorship of the proletariat, the object of
which is to stifle the bourgeoisie, to compel it to give up
its attempts for the restoration of the bourgeois authority,
then it is obvious that there can be no talk of allowing
the bourgeoisie electoral rights or of a change from soviet
authority to a bourgeois-republican parliament.

The Communist (Bolshevik) party receives from all sides
accusations and even threats like the following: “You close
newspapers, you arrest people, you forbid meetings, you trample
underfoot freedom of speech and of the press, you reconstruct
autocracy, you are oppressors and murderers.”

It is necessary to discuss in detail this question of
“liberties” in a Soviet republic.

At present the following is clear for the working-men and the
peasants. The Communist party not only does not demand any
liberty of the press, speech, meetings, unions, etc., for the
bourgeois enemies of the people, but, on the contrary, it
demands that the government should be always in readiness to
close the bourgeois press; to disperse the meetings of the
enemies of the people; to forbid them to lie, slander, and
spread panic; to crush ruthlessly all attempts at a restoration
of the bourgeois régime. This is precisely the meaning of the
dictatorship of the proletariat.

Another question may be put to us: “Why did the Bolsheviki
not speak formerly of the abrogation of full liberty for the
bourgeoisie? Why did they formerly support the idea of a
_bourgeois-democratic republic? Why did they support the idea
of the Constituent Assembly and did not speak of depriving the
bourgeoisie of the right of suffrage?_ Why have they changed
their program so far as these questions are concerned?”

_The answer to this question is very simple. The working-class
formerly did not have strength enough to storm the bulwarks
of the bourgeoisie. It needed preparation, accumulation of
strength, enlightenment of the masses, organization. It needed,
for example, the freedom of its own labor press. But it could
not come to the capitalists and to their governments and
demand that they shut down their own newspapers and give full
freedom to the labor papers. Everybody would merely laugh at
the working-men. Such demands can be made only at the time
of a storming attack. And there had never been such a time
before. This is why the working-men demanded (and our party,
too) “Freedom of the press.” (Of the whole press, including the
bourgeois press.)_

A more immoral doctrine than that contained in these utterances by
the foremost intellectual leaders of Russian Bolshevism can hardly be
conceived of. How admirably their attitude and their method is summed
up in the well-known words of Frederick II of Prussia: “I understand by
the word ‘policy’ that one must make it his study to deceive others;
that is the way to get the better of them.” And these are the men and
this the policy which have found so many champions among us! When or
where in all the history of a hundred years was such a weapon as this
placed in the hands of the reactionists? Here are the spokesmen of what
purports to be a Socialist republic, and of the political party which
claims to present Socialism in its purest and undiluted form, saying
to the world, “Socialists do not believe in freedom of the press; they
find it convenient to say they do while they are weak, in order to
gain protection and aid for their own press, but whenever and wherever
they obtain the power to do so they will suppress the press of all who
disagree with them or in any way oppose them.” That, and not less than
that, is the meaning of these declarations.

The Socialist Party of America has always declared for the fullest
freedom of the press, without any expressed qualifications or
reservations. Tens of thousands of honest men and women have accepted
the party’s declarations upon this subject in good faith, and found
satisfaction and joy in upholding them. No doubt of the sincerity of
the professions of loyalty to the principle of freedom and equality
for all ever entered their minds; no thought or suspicion of sinister
secret reservations or understandings ever disturbed their faith. Not
once, but hundreds of times, when unjust discrimination by government
officials and others seemed to imperil the safety of some Socialist
paper, men and women who were not Socialists at all, but who were
believers in freedom of the press, rushed to their aid. This hundreds
of thousands of Americans have done, because they believed the
Socialists were sincere in their professions that they wanted only
justice, not domination; that they sought only that measure of freedom
they themselves would aid others in securing and maintaining.

If at any time some one had challenged the good faith of the
Socialists, and charged that in the event of their obtaining control of
the government they would use its powers to cripple and suppress the
opposition press, he would have been denounced as a malignant libeler
of honest men and women. Yet here come Lenin and Bucharin, and others
of the same school, affirming that this has always been a Socialist
principle; that the Bolsheviki at least have always said they would act
in precisely that manner. What say American Socialists? The Socialist
Party has declared its support of the party of Lenin and Trotsky and
Bucharin; its national standard-bearer has declared himself to be a
Bolshevik; the party has joined the party of the Russian Bolsheviki in
the Third International, forsaking for that purpose association with
the non-Bolshevist Socialist parties and the Second International.

_Unless and until they unequivocally and unreservedly repudiate the
vicious doctrine set forth by the leading theorists of Bolshevism, the
spokesmen of American Socialism will be properly and justly open to the
suspicion that they cherish in their hearts the intention to use the
powers of government whensoever, and in whatsoever manner, these shall
fall under their control, to abolish the principle of equal freedom for
all, and to suppress by force the organs of publicity of all who do not
agree with them._

If they are not willing to repudiate this doctrine, and to deny the
purpose imputed to them, let them be honest and admit the belief
and the purpose. Silence cannot save them in the face of the words
of Lenin and Bucharin. Silence is eloquent confession henceforth.
Behind every Socialist speaker who seeks to obscure this issue with
rhetoric, or to remain silent upon it, every American who believes in
and loves Freedom--thousands of Socialists among the number--will see
the menacing specter of Bolshevism, nursling of intriguing hate and
lying treason. America will laugh such men to scorn when they invoke
Freedom’s name. Against the masked spirit of despotism which resides in
the Bolshevist propaganda America will set her own traditional ideal,
so well expressed in Lincoln’s fine saying, “As I would not be a slave,
so I would not be a master,” and Whitman’s line, so worthy to accompany
it--“By God! I want nothing for myself that all others may not have
upon equal terms.”

That is the essence of democracy and of liberty; that is the sense in
which these great words live in the heart of America. And that, too, be
it said, is the sense in which they live in the Socialism of Marx--of
which Bolshevism is a grotesque and indecent caricature. That is the
central idea of Marx’s vision of a world free from class divisions and
class strife--a world where none is master and none is slave; where all
good things are accessible to all upon equal terms, and where burdens
are shared with the equality that is fraternal.

With the freedom of the press freedom of assemblage and of speech is
closely interwoven. The foes of the freedom of the press are always and
everywhere equally the foes of the right to assemble for discussion and
argument. And the Bolsheviki are no exception to the rule. From the
beginning, as soon as they had consolidated their power sufficiently
to do so, they have repressed by all the force at their command the
meetings, both public and private, of all who were opposed to them,
even meetings of Socialists called for no purpose other than to
demand government by equal suffrage and meetings of workmen’s unions
called for the purpose of explaining their grievances in such matters
as wages, hours of labor, and shop management. Hundreds of pages of
evidence in support of this statement could be given if that were
necessary. Here, for example, is the testimony of V. M. Zenzinov,
member of the Central Committee of the Socialists-Revolutionists Party:

The Bolsheviki are the only ones who are able to hold political
meetings in present-day Russia; everybody else is deprived of
the right to voice his political opinions, for “undesirable”
speakers are promptly arrested on the spot by the Bolshevist
police. All the Socialist, non-Bolshevist members of the
Soviets were ejected by force of arms; many leaders of
Socialist parties have been arrested. The delegates to the
Moscow Congress of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists
scheduled for May, 1918, were arrested by the Bolsheviki,
yet nobody will attempt to claim that this party, which has
participated in every International Socialist Congress, is not
a Socialist Party.

It was during my stay in Petrograd in April, 1918, that a
conference of factory and industrial plants employees of
Petrograd and vicinity was held, to which 100,000 Petrograd
working-men (out of a total of 132,000) sent delegates.
The conference adopted a resolution sharply denouncing the
Bolshevist régime. Following this conference an attempt was
made in May to call together an All-Russian Congress of
workmen’s deputies in Moscow, but all the delegates were
arrested by the Bolsheviki, and to this day I am ignorant of
the fate that befell my comrades. For all I know they may have
been put to death, as a number of other Socialists have been.

Here is the testimony of Oupovalov, Social Democrat and
trades-unionist, who once more speaks only of matters of which he has
personal knowledge:

On June 22, 1918, the Social Democratic Committee at Sormovo
called a Provincial Non-Party Labor Conference for the purpose
of discussing current events; 350 delegates were present,
representing 350,000 workmen. The afternoon meeting passed
off safely, but before the opening of the evening meeting a
large crowd of local workmen who had gathered in front of the
conference premises were fired upon by a Lettish detachment by
order of the commissaries. The result was that several peaceful
workmen were killed and wounded. The conference was dispersed,
and I, being one of the speakers, was arrested. After a
fortnight’s confinement in a damp cellar, with daily threats of
execution, I was released, owing to energetic protests on the
part of my fellow-workmen, but not for long.

A Labor meeting was convoked at Sormovo by a commissar of
the People’s Economic Soviet from Moscow for the purpose of
discussing the question of food-supply. I was delegated by the
Social Democratic Party to speak at this meeting and criticize
the Bolsheviks’ food policy. _The resolution proposed by me
demanded the cessation of civil war, the summoning of the
Constituent Assembly, the right for co-operatives to purchase
foodstuffs freely._ Out of the 18,000 persons present only 350
voted against the resolution.

That same night I was arrested and sentenced to be shot. The
workmen declared a strike, demanding my release. The Bolsheviks
sent a detachment of Letts, who fired on the unarmed workmen
and many were killed. Nevertheless, the workmen would not give
in, and the Bolsheviki mitigated their sentence and deported me
to the Perm Province.

But what is the use of citing any number of such instances? When a
score, a hundred, or a thousand have been cited we shall hear from the
truculent defenders of Bolshevism that no testimony offered by Russian
revolutionists of the highest standing is worth anything as compared to
the testimony of the Ransomes, Goodes, Coppings, Lansburys, _et al._,
the human phonograph records who repeat with such mechanical precision
the words which the Bolsheviki desire the world outside of Russia
to hear. Against this logic of unreason no amount of testimony can
prevail. It is not so easy, however, to dispose of a “decree” of the
Soviet Government--for is not a “decree” a thing to be regarded as the
Mohammedan regards the Koran? Here, then, is a Bolshevist decree--not,
it need hardly be said, to be found included in any of the collections
of Bolshevist laws and decrees issued to impress the public of America
in favor of the Bolsheviki. Read, mark, and learn, and inwardly digest
it, Mr. Oswald Villard, Mr. Norman Thomas, Mr. William Hard, gentlemen
of the Civil Liberties Bureau, and you others who find America so
reactionary and tyrannical. It is taken from the _Severnaya Communa_,
September 13, 1919, and is signed by Zinoviev:

DECREE REGULATING RIGHT OF PUBLIC ASSOCIATIONS AND MEETINGS

(1) All societies, unions, and associations--political,
economic, artistic, religious, etc.--formed on the territory
of the Union of the Commune of the Northern Region must be
registered at the corresponding Soviets or Committees of the
Village Poor.

(2) The constitution of the union or society, a list of
founders and members of the committee, with names and
addresses, and a list of all members, with their names and
addresses, must be submitted at registration.

(3) All books, minutes, etc., must always be kept at the
disposal of representatives of the Soviet Power for purposes of
revision.

(4) Three days’ notice must be given to the Soviet or to the
Committee of the Village Poor, of all public and private
meetings.

(5) All meetings must be open to the representatives of the
Soviet Power, _viz._, the representatives of the Central
and District Soviet, the Committee of the Poor, and the
Kommandantur of the Revolutionary Secret Police Force.

(6) Unions and societies which do not comply with those
regulations will be regarded as counter-revolutionary
organizations and prosecuted.

This document, like so many others issued by the Bolsheviki, bears a
striking resemblance to the regulations which were issued under Czar
Nicholas II. There is not the slightest suggestion of a spirit and
purpose more generous in its regard for freedom. Nowhere is there
any evidence of a different psychology. Of course, it may be said
in defense, or extenuation if not defense, of the remarkable decree
just quoted that it was a military measure; that it was due to the
conditions of civil warfare prevailing. That defense might be seriously
considered but for the fact that similar regulations have been imposed
in places far removed from any military activity, where there was
no civil warfare, where the Bolsheviki ruled a passive people. More
important than this fact, however, is the evidence of the attitude of
the Bolsheviki, as revealed by their accredited spokesmen. From this it
is quite clear that, regardless of this or that particular decree or
proclamation, _the Bolsheviki look upon the continuous and permanent
suppression of their opponents’ right to hold meetings as a fundamental
policy_. The decree under consideration, with its stringent provisions
requiring registration of all societies and associations of every
kind, the list and addresses of all members, and of all who attend the
meetings, and the arrangement for the attendance of the “Kommandantur
of the Revolutionary Secret-Police Force” at meetings of every kind,
trades-union meetings and religious gatherings no less than political
meetings, is fully in harmony with the declaration of fundamental
policy made by the intellectual leaders of Bolshevism. _Pravda_,
December 7, 1919, quotes Baranov as saying at the seventh All-Russian
Congress: “We do not allow meetings of Mensheviki and Cadets, who in
these meetings would speak of counter-revolution within the country.
The Soviet Power will not allow such meetings, of course, just as it
will not allow freedom of the press, as there are appearing sufficient
White Guardists’ leaflets.” But let us listen once more to the chief
sophist:

7. “Freedom of meeting” may be taken as an example of the
demands for “pure democracy.” Any conscious workman who has
not broken with his own class will understand immediately that
it would be stupid to permit freedom of meetings to exploiters
at this period, and under the present circumstances, when the
exploiters are resisting their overthrow, and are fighting
for their privileges. When the bourgeoisie was revolutionary,
in England in 1649, and in France in 1793, it did not give
“freedom of meetings” to monarchists and nobles who were
calling in foreign troops and who were “meeting” to organize
attempts at restoration. _If the present bourgeoisie, which
has been reactionary for a long time now, demands of the
proletariat that the latter guarantee in advance freedom
of meetings for exploiters no matter what resistance the
capitalists may show to the measures of expropriation directed
against them, the workmen will only laugh at the hypocrisy of
the bourgeoisie._

On the other hand, the workmen know very well that “freedom
of meetings,” even in the most democratic bourgeois republic,
is an empty phrase, for the rich have all the best public
and private buildings at their disposal, and also sufficient
leisure time for meetings and for the protection of these
meetings by the bourgeois apparatus of authority. The
proletarians of the city and of the village and the poor
peasants--that is, the overwhelming majority of the population,
have none of these three things. So long as the situation is
such, “equality”--that is, “pure democracy”--is sheer fraud.
In order to secure genuine equality, in order to realize in
fact democracy for the toilers, one must first take away from
the exploiters all public and luxurious private dwellings, one
must give leisure time to the toilers, _one must protect the
freedom of their meetings by armed workmen, and not by noble or
capitalist officers with browbeaten soldiers_.

Only after such a change can one speak of freedom of meetings
and of equality, without scoffing at workmen, toilers, and
the poor. And no one can bring about this change except the
advance-guard of the toilers--that is, the proletariat--by
overthrowing the exploiters, the bourgeoisie.

8. “Freedom of press” is also one of the main arguments
of “pure democracy,” but again the workmen know that the
Socialists of all countries have asserted millions of times
that _this freedom is a fraud so long as the best printing
machinery and the largest supplies of paper have been seized
by the capitalists, and so long as the power of capital over
the press continues, which power in the whole world is clearly
more harsh and more cynical in proportion to the development
of democratism and the republican principle, as, for example,
in America_. In order to secure actual equality and actual
democracy for the toilers, for workmen and peasants, _one must
first take from capitalists the possibility of hiring writers,
of buying up publishing houses, of buying up newspapers, and
to this end one must overthrow the yoke of capital, overthrow
the exploiters, and put down all resistance on their part_.
The capitalists have always called “freedom” the freedom to
make money for the rich and the freedom to die of hunger for
workmen. The capitalists call “freedom” the freedom of the
rich, freedom to buy up the press, freedom to use wealth, to
manufacture and support so-called public opinion. The defenders
of “pure democracy” again in actual fact turn out to be the
defenders of the most dirty and corrupt system of the rule
of the rich over the means of education of the masses. They
deceive the people by attractive, fine-sounding, beautiful,
but absolutely false phrases, trying to dissuade the masses
from the concrete historic task of freeing the press from the
capitalists who have gotten control of it. Actual freedom
and equality will exist only in the order established by the
Communists, in which it will be impossible to become rich at
the expense of another, where it will be impossible, either
directly or indirectly, to subject the press to the power of
money, where there will be no obstacle to prevent any toiler
(or any large group of such) from enjoying and actually
realizing the equal right to the use of public printing-presses
and of the public fund of paper.

These are “theses” from the report of Lenin on “Bourgeois and
Proletarian Democracies,” published in _Pravda_, March 8, 1919. That
the very term “proletarian democracy” is an absurd self-contradiction,
just as “capitalist democracy” would be, since democracy is inherently
incompatible with class domination of any kind, is worthy of remark
only in so far as the use of the phrase shows the mentality of the man.
Was ever such a farrago of nonsense put forward with such solemnly
pretentious pedantry? The unreasoning hatred and shallow ignorance
of the most demagogic soap-box Socialist propaganda are covered with
the verbiage of scholasticism, and the result is given to the world
as profound philosophy. If there is any disposition to question the
justice of this summary judgment a candid consideration of the two
“theses” just quoted should suffice to settle all doubts.

In the first place, the dominant note is hatred and retaliation: In
1649 the bourgeoisie of England suppressed the right of assemblage,
and in 1793 the bourgeoisie of France did likewise. Therefore, if the
present bourgeoisie, “which has been reactionary for a long time,” now
demands that the workers guarantee freedom of meetings, the workers
will only laugh at their hypocrisy. One is reminded of the ignorant
pogrom-makers who gave the crucifixion of Jesus as their reason for
persecuting Jews in the twentieth century. Upon what higher level is
Lenin’s justification than the ignorant feeling of hostility toward
England, still found in some dark corners of American life, because
of the misgovernment of the Colonies by the England of George the
Third? Is there to be no allowance for the advance made, even by the
bourgeoisie, since the struggles of 1649 and 1793; no consideration of
the fact that the bourgeoisie of England and France in later years
have gone far beyond the standards set by their forerunners in 1649
and 1793; _that they have granted freedom of assemblage, even to those
struggling to overthrow them_? Is twentieth-century Socialism to have
no higher ideal than capitalism already had in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries? Waiving the greater question of whether or not
the claim of any class to succeed to power is worthy of attention
unless its ideals are measurably higher than those of the class it
would displace, is it not quite clear that Lenin’s appeal to “history”
is arrant demagoguery?

Consider the argument further: There is no freedom of meetings, “even
in the most democratic bourgeois republic,” we are told, because “the
rich” have the halls in which to meet, the leisure for meeting and
the “bourgeois apparatus of authority” for the protection of their
meetings. This absurd travesty of facts which are well known to all who
know life in democratic nations is put forward by a man who is hailed
as a philosopher-statesman, though his ponderous “theses” show him to
be among the most blatant demagogues of modern history, his greatest
mental gift being unscrupulous cunning. The workers lack leisure for
meetings, we are told, therefore no freedom of meeting exists--in the
bourgeois democracies. Well, what of the Utopia of the Bolsheviki, the
Utopia of Lenin’s own fashioning? Is there greater leisure for the
worker there? By its own journals we are informed that the Russian
worker now works _twelve hours a day_, but let us not take advantage
of that fact, which is admittedly due to a desperate economic
condition--for which, however, the Bolsheviki are mainly responsible.
But in the very much praised labor laws of the Russian Socialist
Federal Soviet Republic an eight-hour workday is provided for. Are
we to assume that this leaves sufficient leisure to the workers to
make freedom of meeting possible for them? Very well. To a very large
extent the eight-hour day prevails in this poor despised “bourgeois
democracy,” either as a result of legislation or of trades-union
organization. Nay, more, the forty-four-hour week is with us, and even
the _six-hour day_, in some trades. The unattained ideal of Sovdepia’s
labor legislation is thus actually below what is rapidly coming to be
our common practice. Anybody who knows anything at all of the facts
knows that the conditions here set forth are true of this country and,
to a very large degree, of England.

Is it true that freedom of assemblage is impossible in this poor old
“bourgeois democracy,” because, forsooth, the workers lack the halls
in which to meet? Is that the condition in England, or in any of the
western nations in which the much-despised “bourgeois democracy”
prevails? How many communities are there in America where meeting-halls
are accessible only to “the rich,” where they cannot be had by the
workers upon equal terms with all other people? Over the greater part
of America--wherever “bourgeois democracy” exists--our publicly owned
auditoriums, the city halls, and school halls, are open to all citizens
upon equal terms. Even where private halls have to be hired, and
stiff rents paid, it is common for the collections to cover expenses
and even leave a profit. In many of the cities the organized workers
own their own auditoriums. In England, Belgium, Denmark, and other
European countries--“bourgeois democracies” all--a great many of the
finest auditoriums are those owned and controlled by the workmen’s
organizations, and they are frequently hired by “the rich.” Finally,
wherever the government of any city has come under the control of
Socialist or Labor movements, auditoriums freely accessible to the
workers have been provided, and this obstacle to freedom of assemblage
which gives Lenin such concern has been removed. This has been done,
moreover, without descending to the level of old oppressors, and it
has not been necessary to resort to “armed workmen,” any more than to
“browbeaten soldiers” with capitalist officers to protect the freedom
of assemblage.

So, too, with the freedom of the press. In the nations where democratic
laws prevail _the workers’ press is just as strong and powerful as the
interest and will of the workers themselves decree_. If the Socialist
press in our cities is weak and uninfluential, that fact is the natural
and inevitable corollary of the weakness of the Socialist movement
itself. Was _L’Humanité_, when it was still a great and powerful
newspaper, or were the Berlin _Vorwärts_, _Le Peuple_ of Brussels,
and _L’Avanti_ of Rome, less “free” than other newspapers? Were they
less “free” than _Pravda_, even, to say nothing of the anti-Bolshevist
papers opposed to Bolshevism? True, they had not the privilege of
looting the public treasuries; they could not force an oppressive,
discriminatory, and confiscatory tax upon the other newspapers; they
could not utilize the forces of the state to seize and use the plants
belonging to their rivals; they could not rely upon the power of the
state to compel people against their will to “subscribe” to them. In
other words, the freedom they possessed was the freedom to publish
their views and to gain as many readers as possible by lawful methods;
the only “freedom” they lacked was the freedom of brigandage, the right
to despoil and oppress others.

So much, then, for the labored sophistry of the chief Talmudist of
Bolshevism and his tiresome “theses” with their demagogic cant and
their appeals to the lowest instincts and passions of his followers.
The record herein set forth proves beyond shadow of a doubt that
neither in the régime Lenin and his co-conspirators have thus far
maintained nor in the ideal they set for themselves is there any place
for that freedom of speech and thought and conscience without which all
other liberties are unavailing. These men prate of freedom, but they
are tyrants. If they be not tyrants, “we then extremely wrong Caligula
and Nero in calling them tyrants, and they were rebels that conspired
against them.” If Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Bucharin are not
tyrants, but liberators, so were the Grand Inquisitors of Spain.

XII

“THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT”

In a pamphlet entitled _Two Tactics_, published in Geneva, in 1905, at
the time of the first Russian Revolution, Lenin wrote:

Whoever wants to try any path to Socialism other than political
democracy _will inevitably come to absurd and reactionary
conclusions, both in an economic and a political sense_. If
some workmen ask us, “Why not achieve the maximum program?”
we shall answer them by pointing out how alien to Socialism
the democratic masses are, how undeveloped are the class
contradictions, how unorganized are the proletarians.... The
largest possible realization of democratic reform is necessary
and requisite for the spreading of socialistic enlightenment
and for introducing appropriate organization.

These words are worth remembering. In the light of the tragic
results of Bolshevism they seem singularly prophetic, for certainly
by attempting to achieve Socialism through other methods than those
of political democracy Lenin and his followers have “come to absurd
and reactionary conclusions, both in an economic and a political
sense.” They profess, for example, to have established in Russia a
“dictatorship of the proletariat.” In reality they have set up a
tyrannical rule over the proletariat, together with the rest of the
population, by an almost infinitesimal part of the population of
Russia. Lenin and his followers claim to be the logical exemplars of
the teachings of Karl Marx, whereas their whole theory is no more than
a grotesque travesty of Marx’s teachings.

More than seventy years have elapsed since the publication of Marx’s
_Communist Manifesto_, in which he set forth his theory of the
historic rôle of the proletariat. Thirty-seven years--more than a full
generation--have elapsed since his death in 1883. Even if it were true
that during the period spanned by these two dates Karl Marx believed
in and advocated the dictatorship of the proletariat in the sense in
which that term is used by the Bolsheviki, that fact would possess
little more than historical interest. Much has happened since the
death of Marx, and still more since the early ’seventies, when his
life-work virtually ended, which the political realist needs must take
into account. Marx did not utter the last word of human wisdom upon
the laws and methods of social progress and so render new and fresh
judgments unnecessary and wrong. No one can study the evolution of
Marx himself and doubt that if he were alive to-day he would hold very
different views from those which he held in 1847 and subsequently. Our
only justification for considering the relation of Leninism to Marxism
lies in the fact that in this and other countries outside of Russia a
considerable element in the Socialist movement, deceived by Lenin’s
use of certain Marxian phrases, gives its support to Leninism in the
belief that it is identical with Marxism. Nothing could be farther from
the teachings of Marx than the oppressive bureaucratic dictatorship by
an infinitesimal minority set up by Lenin and his disciples.

In the _Communist Manifesto_ Marx used the term “proletariat” in the
sense in which it was used by Barnave and other Intellectuals of the
French Revolution, not as it is commonly used to-day, as a synonym for
the wage-earning class. The term as used by Marx connoted not merely
an absence of property, not merely poverty, but a peculiar state of
degradation. Just as in Roman society the term was applied to a large
class, including peasants, wage laborers, and others without capital,
property, or assured means of support, unfit and unworthy to exercise
political rights, so the term was used by Marx, as it had been by
his predecessors, to designate a class in modern society similarly
denied the rights of citizenship. When Marx wrote in 1847 this was
the condition of the wage-earning class in every European country.
In no one of these countries did the working-class enjoy the right
of suffrage. Marx saw no hope of any amelioration of the lot of this
class. On the contrary, he believed that the evolution of society
would take the form of a relentless, brutal process, unrestrained by
any humane consciousness or legislation, which would culminate in a
division of society into two classes, on the one hand a very small
ruling and owning class, on the other hand the overwhelming majority
of the population. He specifically rejected the idea of minority
rule: “All previous historical movements were movements of minorities,
or in the interest of minorities. _The proletarian movement is the
self-conscious independent movement of the immense majority, in the
interest of the immense majority._ The proletariat, the lowest stratum
of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without
the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into
the air.”

Not only does Marx here present the proletarian uprising as the
culmination of a historical process which has made proletarians of
“the immense majority,” but, what is more significant, perhaps,
he presents this movement, not as a conscious _ideal_, but as an
inevitable and inescapable _condition_. In 1875, in a famous letter
criticizing the Gotha program of the German Social Democrats, he
wrote: “Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of
the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. This
requires a political transition stage, which can be nothing less than
the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” It is mainly upon
this single quotation that Lenin and his followers rely in claiming
Marxian authority for the régime set up in Russia under the title the
Dictatorship of the Proletariat. The passage cited cannot honestly and
fairly be so interpreted. We are bound to bear in mind that Marx still
held to the belief that the revolution from capitalist to communist
society could only take place when the proletariat had become “the
immense majority.”

Moreover, it is quite clear that he was still thinking, in 1875, of
dictatorship by this _immense majority_ as a temporary measure. Of
course, the word “dictatorship” is a misnomer when it is so used, but
not more so than when used to describe rule by any class. Strictly
speaking, dictatorship refers to a rule by a single individual who is
bound by no laws, the absolute supremacy of an individual dictator.
Friedrich Engels, who collaborated with Marx in writing the _Communist
Manifesto_ and in much of his subsequent work, and who became his
literary executor and finished _Das Kapital_, certainly knew the mind
of Marx as no other human being did or could. Engels has, fortunately,
made quite clear the sense in which Marx used the term “dictatorship
of the proletariat.” In his _Civil War in France_, Marx described the
Paris Commune as “essentially a government of the working-class, the
result of the struggle of the producing class against the appropriating
class, the political form under which the freedom of labor could
be attained being at length revealed.” He described with glowing
enthusiasm the Commune with its town councilors chosen by universal
suffrage, and not by the votes of a single class. As Kautsky remarks,
“the dictatorship of the proletariat was for him a condition which
necessarily arose in a real democracy, because of the overwhelming
numbers of the proletariat.”[66] That this is a correct interpretation
of Marx’s thought is attested by the fact that in his introduction
to the _Civil War in France_ Engels describes the Commune, based on
the general suffrage of the whole people, as “the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat.”

[66] Kautsky, _The Dictatorship of the Proletariat_, p. 45.

Of course, the evolution of modern industrial nations has proceeded
upon very different lines from those forecasted by Marx. The middle
class has not been exterminated and shows no signs of being submerged
in the wage-earning class; the workers are no longer disfranchised and
outside the pale of citizenship; on the contrary, they have acquired
full political rights and are becoming increasingly powerful in the
parliaments. In other words, the wage-earning class is, for the most
part, no longer “proletarian” in the narrow sense in which Marx
used the term. Quite apart from these considerations, however, it
is very obvious that the theory of Lenin and his followers that the
whole political power of Russia should be centered in the so-called
industrial proletariat, which even the Bolsheviki themselves have not
estimated at more than 3 per cent. of the entire population, bears
no sort of relation to the process Marx always had in mind when he
referred to “proletarian dictatorship.” Not only is there no sanction
for the Leninist view in Marxian theory, but the two are irreconcilably
opposed.

The Bolshevist régime does not even represent the proletariat,
however. The fact is thoroughly well established that the political
power rests in the Communist Party, which represents only a minority
of the proletariat. What we have before us in Russia is not even a
dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship over an entire
people, including the proletariat, by the Communist Party. The
testimony of the Bolsheviki themselves upon this point is abundant
and conclusive. If any good purpose were served thereby, pages of
statements to this effect by responsible Bolshevist leaders could be
cited; for our present purpose, however, the following quotations will
suffice:

In a letter to workmen and peasants issued in July, 1918, Lenin said,
“The dictatorship of the proletariat _is carried out by the party of
the Bolsheviki_, which, as early as 1905, and earlier, became one with
the entire revolutionary proletariat.” In an article entitled, “The
Party and the Soviets,” published in _Pravda_, February 13, 1919,
Bucharin, editor-in-chief of that important official organ of the
Communist Party, said: “It is no secret for any one that in a country
where the working-class and the poorest peasantry are in power, that
party is the directing party which expresses the interests of these
groups of the population--the Communist Party. All the work in the
Soviet goes on under the influence and the political leadership of
our party. It is the forms which this leadership should assume that
are the subject of disagreement.” In _Pravda_, November 5, 1919, the
leading editorial says of the “adventure of Yudenich” that in the last
analysis “this ordeal has strengthened the cause of revolution and has
_strengthened the hegemony of the Communist Party_.” In the _Samara
Kommuna_, April 11, 1919, we read that “The Communist Party as a whole
is responsible for the future of the young Soviet Socialist Republic,
for the whole course of the world Communist revolution. In the country
_the highest organ of authority, to which all Soviet institutions and
officials are subordinate, is again the Communist Party_.”

Not only do we find that the Bolshevist régime rests upon the theory
of the hegemony of the Communist Party, but in practice the party
functions as a part of the state machinery, as the directing machinery,
in point of fact, placing the Soviets in a subordinate position. At
times the Communist Party has exercised the entire power of government,
as, for example, from July, 1918, to January, 1919. Thus we read in
_Izvestia_, November 6, 1919, “From October, 1917, up to July, 1918,
is the first period of Soviet construction; from July, 1918, up to
January, 1919, the second period, _when the Soviet work was conducted
exclusively by the power of the Russian Communist Party_; and the third
period from January this year, when in the work of Soviet construction
broad non-partizan masses participated.”

This condition was, of course, made possible by the predominance of
Communist Party members in the Soviet Government, a predominance due
to the measures taken to exclude the anti-Bolshevist parties. Thus 88
per cent. of the members of the Executive Committees of the Provincial
Soviets were members of the Communist Party, according to _Izvestia_,
November 6, 1919. In the army, while their number was relatively small,
not more than 10,000 in the entire army, members of the Communist Party
held almost all the responsible posts. Trotsky, as Commander-in-Chief,
reported to the seventh Congress, according to the _Red Baltic Fleet_,
December 11, 1919, “our Army consists of peasants and workmen. _Workmen
represent scarcely more than 15 to 18 per cent., but they maintain
the same directing position as throughout Soviet Russia._ This is
a privilege secured to them because of their greater consciousness,
compactness, and revolutionary zeal. The army is the reflection of our
whole social order. It is based on the rule of the working-class, in
which latter the party of Communists plays the leading rôle.” Trotsky
further said: “The number of members of this party in the army is about
ten thousand. The responsible posts of commissaries are occupied by
them in the overwhelming majority of instances. In each regiment there
is a Communist group. The significance of the Communists in the army is
shown by the fact that when conditions become unfavorable in a given
division the commanding staff appeals to the Revolutionary Military
Soviet with a request that a group of Communists be sent down.”
Accordingly, it is not surprising to find the party itself exercising
the functions of government and issuing orders. In _Izvestia_ and
_Pravda_, during April, 1919, numerous paragraphs were published
relating to the mobilization of regiments by the Communist Party.

From figures published by the Bolsheviki themselves it is possible to
obtain a tolerably accurate idea of the actual numerical strength of
the Communist Party. During the second half of 1918, when, as stated
in the paragraph already quoted from _Izvestia_, “the Soviet work was
conducted exclusively by the power of the Russian Communist Party,”
there was naturally a considerable increase in the party membership,
for very obvious reasons. In _Severnaya Communa_, February 22, 1919,
appeared the following:

At the session of the Moscow Committee of the Russian Communist
Party, on February 15, 1919, the following resolutions were
carried: Taking into account--(1) That the uninterrupted
growth of our party during the year of dictatorship has
inevitably meant _that there have entered its ranks elements
having absolutely nothing in common with Communism_, joining
in order to use the authority of the Russian Communist
Party for their own personal, selfish aims; (2) That these
elements, taking cover under the flag of Communism, are by
their acts discrediting in the eyes of the people the prestige
and glorious name of our Proletarian Party; (3) That _the
so-called “Communists of our days” by their outrageous behavior
are arousing discontent and bitter feeling in the people_,
thus creating a favorable soil for counter-revolutionary
agitation--taking all this into account, the Moscow Committee
of the Russian Communist Party declares:

(_a_) That the party congress about to be held should call
on all party organizations to check up in the strictest
manner all members of the party and cleanse its ranks of
elements foreign to the party; (_b_) that one must carry on
a decisive struggle against those elements whose acts create
a counter-revolutionary state of mind; (_c_) that one must
make every effort to raise the moral level of members of the
Russian Communist Party and educate them in the spirit of true
Proletarian Communism; (_d_) that one must direct all efforts
toward strengthening party discipline and establishing strict
control by the party over all its members in all fields of
Party-Soviet activity.

Yet, notwithstanding the inflation of party membership here referred
to, we find _Izvestia_ reporting in that same month, February, 1919,
as follows: “The secretary of the Communist Party of the Moscow
Province states that the total number of party members throughout the
whole province is 2,881.” At the eighth Congress of the Communist
Party, March, 1919, serious attention was given to the inflation of
the party membership by the admission of Soviet employees and others
who were not Communists at heart, and it was decided to cleanse the
party of such elements and, after that was done, to undertake a
recruiting campaign for new members. Yet, according to the official
minutes of this Congress, “_the sum total of the Communist Party
throughout Soviet Russia represents about one-half of one per cent.
of the entire population_.” We find in _Izvestia_, May 8, 1919, that
out of a total of more than two million inhabitants in the Province
of Kaluga the membership of the Communist Party amounted to less than
one-fifth of one per cent. of the population: “According to the data
of the Communist Congress of the Province of Kaluga there are 3,861
registered members of the party throughout the whole province.” On the
following day, May 9, 1919, _Izvestia_ reported: “At the Communist
Congress of the Riazan Province 181 organizations were represented,
numbering 5,994 members.” As the population of the Riazan Province was
well over 3,000,000 it will be seen that here again the Communist Party
membership was less than one-fifth of one per cent. of the population.

At this time various Bolshevist journals gave the Communist Party
membership at 20,000 for the city of Moscow and 12,000 for Petrograd.
Then took place the so-called “re-registration,” to “relieve the
party of this ballast,” as _Pravda_ said later on, “those careerists
of the petty bourgeois groups of the population.” In Petrograd the
membership was reduced by nearly one-third and in some provincial towns
by from 50 to 75 per cent. The result was that in September, 1919,
_Pravda_ reported the number of Communist Party members in Petrograd as
9,000, “with at least 50,000 ardent supporters of the anti-Bolshevist
movement.” This official journal did not regard the 9,000 as a united
body of genuine and sincere Communists: “Are the 9,000 upholding the
cause of Bolshevism acting according to their convictions? No. Most of
them are in ignorance of the principles of the Communists, _which at
heart they do not believe in_, but all the employees of the Soviets
study these principles much the same as under the rule of the Czar they
turned their attention to police rules _in order to get ahead_.”

On October 1, 1919, _Pravda_ published two significant circular letters
from the Central Committee of the Communist Party to the district
and local organizations of the party. The first of these called for
“a campaign to recruit new members into the party” and to induce old
members to rejoin. To make joining the party easier “entry into the
party is not to be conditioned by the presentation of two written
recommendations as before.” The appeal to the party workers says,
“During ‘party-week’ _we ought to increase the membership of our party
to half a million_.” The second circular is of interest because of the
following sentences: “The principle of administration by ‘colleges’
must be reduced to a minimum. Discussions and considerations must be
given up. _The party must be as soon as possible rebuilt on military
lines_, and there must be created a military revolutionary apparatus
which would work solidly and accurately. In this apparatus there must
be clearly distributed privileges and duties.”

The frenzied efforts to increase the party membership by “drives” in
which every device and every method of persuasion and pressure was used
brought into the party many who were not Communists at all. Thus we
find _Pravda_ saying, December 12, 1919: “The influx of many members
to the collectives (Soviet Management groups) comes not only from the
working-class, _but also from the middle bourgeoisie_ which formerly
considered Communists as its enemies. One of the new collectives is a
collective at the estate of Kurakin (a children’s colony). Here entered
the collective not only loyal employees, _but also representatives
of the teaching staff_.” _Pravda_ adds that “this inrush of the
bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie that formerly considered the Communists
as its enemies, is not at all to our interest. Of course, there may be
honest Soviet officials who have in fact shown their loyalty to the
great ideas of Communism, and such can find their place in our ranks.”
Other Bolshevist journals wrote in the same spirit deploring the
admission of so many “bourgeois” Soviet officials into the party.

In spite of this abnormal and much-feared inflation of the party
membership, _Pravda_ reported on March 18, 1920, that with more than
300,000 workmen in Petrograd the total membership of the Communist
Party in that city was only 30,000. That is to say, including all
the Soviet officials and “bourgeois elements,” the party membership
amounted to rather less than 10 per cent. of the industrial
proletariat, and that in the principal center of the party, the first
of the two great cities. Surely this is proof that the Communist Party
really represents only a minority of the industrial proletariat. If
even with all its bourgeois elements it amounts in the principal
industrial city, its stronghold, to less than 10 per cent. of the
number of working-men, we may be quite certain that in the country as a
whole the percentage is very much smaller.

Even if we take into account only the militant portion of the organized
proletariat, the Communist Party is shown to represent only a minority
of it. _Economicheskaya Zhizn_, October 15, 1919, published an
elaborate statistical analysis of the First Trades-Union Conference of
the Moscow Government. We learn that in the Union of Textile Workers,
the largest union represented, of 131 delegates present only 27, or
20.6 per cent., declared themselves to be Communists; while 94, or 71.7
per cent., declared themselves to be non-party, and 3 declared that
they were Mensheviki. Of the 21 delegates of the Union of Compositors
13, or 62.3 per cent., declared themselves to be Mensheviki; 7, or 33
per cent., to be non-party, and only 1 registered as a Communist. The
Union of Soviet employees naturally sent a majority of delegates who
registered as Communists, 45 out of 67 delegates, or 67 per cent., so
registering themselves. The unions were divided into four classes or
categories, as follows:

_Category_ _No. of _No. of Members
Delegates_ Represented_

_First_: Workers employed in
large industries 287 266,660

_Second_: Workers employed in
small industries 113 806,200

_Third_: “Mixed unions” of
Soviet employees, etc 197 204,100

_Fourth_: Intellectual workers’
unions 183 132,800

If we take the first two categories as representing the industrial
proletariat as a whole we get 1,072,860 proletarians represented by
400 delegates; in the third and fourth categories, representing Soviet
officials, Intellectuals, and “petty bourgeois elements,” we get 380
delegates representing 336,900 members. Thus the industrial proletariat
secured only about one-third of the representation in proportion to
membership secured by the other elements. Representation was upon this
basis:

_Category_ _One Delegate for
Every_

_First_: Workers in large industries 610 workers

_Second_: Workers in small industries 1,427 “

_Third_: “Mixed unions”--Soviet employees,
city employees, etc 247 “

_Fourth_: Intellectuals 237 “

With all this juggling and gerrymandering the Bolsheviki did not manage
to get a majority of out-and-out Communists, and only by having a
separate classification for “sympathizers” did they manage to attain
such a majority, namely, 52 per cent. of all delegates. If we take the
delegates of workers engaged in the large industries, the element which
Lenin has so often called “the kernel of the proletariat,” we find that
only 28 per cent. declared themselves as belonging to the Communist
Party. At the All-Russian Conference of Engineering Workers, reported
in _Economicheskaya Zhizn_ (No. 219), we find that of the delegates
present those declaring themselves to be Communists were 40 per cent.,
those belonging to no party 46 per cent., and Mensheviki 8 per cent.

In considering these figures we must bear in mind these facts: First,
delegates to such bodies are drawn from the most active men in the
organizations; second, persecution of all active in opposition to the
Bolsheviki inevitably lessened the number of active opponents among the
delegates; third, for two years there had been no freedom of press,
speech, or assemblage for any but the Communists; fourth, by enrolling
as a Communist, or even by declaring himself to be a “sympathizer,”
a man could obtain a certain amount of protection and a privileged
position in the matter of food distribution. When all these things are
duly taken into account the weakness of the hold of the Bolsheviki upon
the minds of even the militant part of the proletariat is evident.

What an absurdity it is to call the Bolshevist régime a dictatorship
of the proletariat, even if we accept the narrow use of this term upon
which the Bolsheviki insist and omit all except about 5 per cent.
of the peasantry, a class which comprises 85 per cent. of the entire
population. It is a dictatorship by the Communist Party, a political
faction which, according to its own figures, had in its membership in
March, 1919, about one-half of one per cent. of the population--or,
roughly, one and a half per cent. of the adult population entitled
to vote under the universal franchise introduced by the Provisional
Government; a party which, after a period of confessedly dangerous
inflation by the inclusion of non-proletarian elements in exceedingly
large numbers, had in March of this year, in the greatest industrial
center, a membership amounting to less than 10 per cent. of the
number of working-men. To say that Soviet Russia is governed by the
proletariat is, in the face of these figures, a grotesque and stupid
misstatement.

XIII

STATE COMMUNISM AND LABOR CONSCRIPTION

Many of the most influential critics of modern Socialism have argued
that the realization of its program must inevitably require a complete
and intolerable subjection of the individual to an all-powerful,
bureaucratic state. They have contended that Socialism in practice
would require the organization of the labor forces of the nation upon
military lines; that the right of the citizen to select his or her own
occupation subject only to economic laws, and to leave one job for
another at will, would have to be denied and the sole authority of
the state established in such matters as the assignment of tasks, the
organization and direction of industry.

Writers like Yves Guyot, Eugene Richter, Herbert Spencer, Huxley,
Goldwin Smith, and many others, have emphasized this criticism and
assailed Socialism as the foe of individual freedom. Terrifying
pictures have been drawn of the lot of the workers in such a society;
their tasks assigned to them by some state authority, their hours of
labor, and their remuneration similarly controlled, with no freedom of
choice or right of change of occupation. Just as under the _adscriptio
glebæ_ of feudalism the worker was bound to the soil, so, these
hostile critics of Socialism have argued, must the workers be bound
to bureaucratically set tasks under Socialism. Just as, immediately
prior to the breaking up of the Roman Empire, workers were thus bound
to certain kinds of work and, moreover, to train their children to the
same work, so, we have been told a thousand times, it must necessarily
be in a Socialist state.

Of course all responsible Socialists have repudiated these fantastic
caricatures of Socialism. They have uniformly insisted that Socialism
is compatible with the highest individualism; that it affords the
basis for a degree of personal freedom not otherwise obtainable.
They have laughed to scorn the idea of a system which gave to the
state the power to assign each man or woman his or her task. Every
Socialist writer has insisted that the selection of occupation, for
example, must be personal and free, and has assailed the idea of a
regimentation or militarization of labor, pointing out that this would
never be tolerated by a free democracy; that it was only possible in a
despotic state, undemocratic, and not subject to the will and interest
of the people. Many of the most brilliant and convincing pages of the
great literature of modern international Socialism are devoted to its
exoneration from this charge, particular attention being given to the
anti-statist character of the Socialist movement and to the natural
antagonism of democracy to centralization and bureaucracy.

It is a significant fact that from the middle of the nineteenth
century right down to the present day the extreme radical left wing
of the Socialist movement in every country has been bitter in its
denunciation of those Socialists who assumed the continued existence
of the state, rivaling the most extreme individualists in abuse of
“the tyranny of the state.” Without a single noteworthy exception
the leaders of the radical left wing of the movement have been
identified with those revolts against “statism” which have manifested
themselves in the agitations for decentralized autonomy. They have been
anti-parliamentarians and direct-actionists almost to a man.

By a strange irony of history it has remained for the self-styled
Marxian Socialists of Russia, the Bolsheviki, who are so much more
Marxist than Marx himself, to give to the criticism we are discussing
the authority of history. They have lifted it from the shadowy regions
of fantastic speculation to the almost impregnable and unassailable
ground of established law and practice. The Code of Labor Laws of
Soviet Russia, recently published in this country by the official
bureau of the Russian Soviet Government, can henceforth be pointed
to by the enemies of social democracy as evidence of the truth of
the charge that Socialism aims to reduce mankind to a position of
hopeless servitude. Certainly no freedom-loving man or woman would
want to exchange life under capitalism, with all its drawbacks and
disadvantages, for the despotic, bureaucratic régime clearly indicated
in this most remarkable collection of laws.

As we have seen, Lenin and his followers were anti-statists. Once
in the saddle they set up a powerful state machine and began to
apotheosize the state. Not only did the term “Soviet State” come into
quite general use in place of “Soviet Power”; what is still more
significant is the special sanctity with which they endowed the state.
In this they go as far as Hegel, though they do not use his spiritual
terminology. The German philosopher saw the state as “the Divine Will
embodied in the human will,” as “Reason manifested,” and as “the
Eternal personified.” Upon that conception the Prussian-German ideal
of the state was based. That the state must be absolute, its authority
unquestioned, is equally the basic conception upon which the Bolshevist
régime rests. In no modern nation, not even the Germany of Bismarck
and Wilhelm II, has the authority of the state been so comprehensive,
so wholly dependent upon force or more completely independent of the
popular will. Notwithstanding the revolutionary ferment of the time,
so arrogantly confident have the self-constituted rulers become that
we find Zinoviev boasting, “Were we to publish a decree ordering the
entire population of Petrograd, under fifty years of age, to present
themselves on the field of Mars to receive twenty-five birch rods, we
are certain that 75 per cent. would obediently form a queue, and the
remaining 25 per cent. would bring medical certificates exempting them
from the flogging.”

It is interesting to note in the writings of Lenin the Machiavellian
manner in which, even before the _coup d’état_ of November, 1917,
he began to prepare the minds of his followers for the abandonment
of anti-statism. Shortly before that event he published a leaflet
entitled, “Shall the Bolsheviki Remain in Power?” In this leaflet he
pointed out that the Bolsheviki had preached the destruction of the
state _only because, and so long as, the state was in the possession
of the master class_. He asked why they should continue to do this
after they themselves had taken the helm. The state, he argued, is
the organized rule of a privileged minority class, and the Bolsheviki
must use the enemy’s machinery and substitute their minority. Here we
have revealed the same vicious and unscrupulous duplicity, the same
systematic, studied deception, as in such matters as freedom of speech
and press, equal suffrage, and the convocation of the Constituent
Assembly--a fundamental principle so long as the party was in revolt,
anti-statism was to be abandoned the moment the power to give it
effect was secured. Other Socialists had been derided and bitterly
denounced by the Bolsheviki for preaching the “bourgeois doctrine”
of controlling and using the machinery of the state; nothing but the
complete destruction of the state and its machinery would satisfy their
revolutionary minds. But with their first approach to power the tune is
changed and possession and use of the machinery of the state are held
to be desirable and even essential.

For what is this possession of the power and machinery of the state
desired? For no constructive purpose of any sort or kind whatever, if
we may believe Lenin, but only for destruction and oppression. In his
little book, _The State and the Revolution_, written in September,
1917, he says: “As the state is only a transitional institution
which we must use in the revolutionary struggle _in order forcibly
to crush our opponents_, it is a pure absurdity to speak of a Free
People’s State. While the proletariat still needs the state, _it does
not require it in the interests of freedom, but in the interests of
crushing its antagonists_.” Here, then, is the brutal doctrine of
the state as an instrument of coercion and repression which the arch
Bolshevist acknowledges; a doctrine differing from that of Treitschke
and other Prussians only in its greater brutality. The much-discussed
Code of Labor Laws of the Soviet Government, with its elaborate
provisions for a permanent conscription of labor upon an essentially
military basis, is the logical outcome of the Bolshevist conception of
the state.

The statement has been made by many of the apologists of the Bolsheviki
that the conscription of labor, which has been so unfavorably commented
upon in the western nations, is a temporary measure only, introduced
because of the extraordinary conditions prevailing. It has been stated,
by Mr. Lincoln Eyre among others, that it was adopted on the suggestion
of Mr. Royal C. Keely, an American engineer who was employed by Lenin
to make an expert report upon Russia’s economic position and outlook,
and whose report, made in January of this year, is known to have been
very unfavorable. A brief summary of the essential facts will show (1)
that the Bolsheviki had this system in mind from the very first, and
(2) that quite early they began to make tentative efforts to introduce
it.

When the Bolsheviki appeared at the convocation of the Constituent
Assembly and demanded that that body adopt a document which would
virtually amount to a complete abdication of its functions, that
document contained a clause--Article II, Paragraph 4--which read as
follows: “To enforce general compulsory labor, in order to destroy the
class of parasites, and to reorganize the economic life.” In April,
1918, Lenin wrote:

The delay in introducing obligatory labor service is another
proof that the most urgent problem is precisely the preparatory
organization work which, on one hand, should definitely
secure our gains, and which, on the other hand, is necessary
to prepare the campaign to “surround capital” and to “compel
its surrender.” _The introduction of obligatory labor service
should be started immediately, but it should be introduced
gradually and with great caution, testing every step by
practical experience, and, of course, introducing first of all
obligatory labor service for the rich._ The introduction of
a labor record-book and a consumption-budget record-book for
every bourgeois, including the village bourgeois, would be a
long step forward toward a complete “siege” of the enemy and
toward the creation of a really _universal_ accounting and
control over production and distribution.[67]

[67] _The Soviets at Work_, p. 19

Some idea of the extent to which the principle of compulsory labor was
applied to the bourgeoisie, as suggested by Lenin, can be gathered
from the numerous references to the subject in the official Bolshevist
press, especially in the late summer and early autumn of 1918. The
extracts here cited are entirely typical: as early as April 17,
1918, _Izvestia_ published a report by Larine, one of the People’s
Commissaries, on the government of Moscow, in which he said: “A
redistribution of manual labor must be made by an organized autonomous
government composed of workers; compulsory labor for workmen must
be prohibited; it would subject the proletariat to the peasants and
on the whole could be of no use, seeing the general stoppage of all
labor. Compulsion can be used only for those who have no need to work
for their living--members of heretofore ruling classes.” _Bednota_, an
official organ of the Communist Party, on September 20, 1918, published
an interesting item from the Government of Smolensk, saying: “We shall
soon have a very interesting community: we are bringing together
all the landed proprietors of the district, are assigning them one
property, supplying them with the necessary inventory, and making them
work. Come and see this miracle! It is evident that this community is
strictly guarded. The affair seems to promise well.”

Here are seven typical news items from four issues of _Bednota_, the
date of the paper being given after each item:

_The mobilization of the bourgeoisie._--In the Government of
Aaratov the bourgeoisie is mobilized. The women mend the sacks,
the men clear the ruins from a big fire. In the Government of
Samara the bourgeois from 18 to 50 years of age, not living
from the results of their labor, are also called up. (September
19, 1918.)

VIATKA, _24th September_.--The mobilization of the idlers
(bourgeois) has been decided. (September 26, 1918.)

NEVEL, _26th September_.--The executive committee has decreed
the mobilization of the bourgeoisie in town and country. All
the bourgeois in fit state to work are obliged to do forced
labor without remuneration. (September 27, 1918.)

KOSTROMA, _26th September_.--The mobilized bourgeoisie is
working at the paving of the streets. (September 27, 1918.)

The executive committee of the Soviet of the Government of
Moscow has decided to introduce in all the districts the use
of forced labor for all persons from 18 to 50 years of age,
belonging to the non-working class. (September 27, 1918.)

VORONEGE, _28th September_.--The poverty committee has
decided to call up all the wealthy class for communal work
(ditch-making, draining the marshes, etc.). (September 29,
1918.)

SVOTSCHEVKA, _28th September_.--The concentration of the
bourgeoisie is being proceeded with and the transfer of the
poor into commodious and healthy dwellings. The bourgeois is
cleaning the streets. (September 29, 1918.)

From other Bolshevist journals a mass of similar information might
be cited. Thus _Goloss Krestianstva_, October 1, 1918, said:
“_Mobilization of the parasites._--Odoeff, 28th September.--The
Soviet of the district has mobilized the bourgeoisie, the priests,
and other parasites for public works: repairing the pavements,
cleaning the pools, and so on.” On October 6, 1918, _Pravda_ reported:
“Chembar.--The bourgeoisie put to compulsory work is repairing the
pavements and the roads.” On October 11th the same paper reported
Zinoviev as saying, in a speech: “If you come to Petrograd you will
see scores of bourgeoisie laying the pavement in the courtyard of the
Smolny.... I wish you could see how well they unload coal on the Neva
and clean the barracks.” _Izvestia_, October 19, 1918, published this:
“Orel.--To-day the Orel bourgeoisie commenced compulsory work to which
it was made liable. Parties of the bourgeoisie, thus made to work, are
cleaning the streets and squares from rubbish and dirt.” The _Krasnaya
Gazeta_, October 16, 1918, said, “Large forces of mobilized bourgeoisie
have been sent to the front to do trench work.” Finally, the last-named
journal on November 6, 1918, said: “The District Extraordinary
Commission (Saransk) has organized a camp of concentration for the
local bourgeoisie and _kulaki_.[68] The duties of the confined shall
consist in keeping clean the town of Saransk. The existence of the camp
will be maintained at the expense of the same bourgeoisie.”

[68] _i.e._, “close-fists.”

That a great and far-reaching social revolution should deny to the
class overthrown the right to live in idleness is neither surprising
nor wrong. A Socialist revolution could not do other than insist that
no person able to work be entitled to eat without rendering some useful
service to society. No Socialist will criticize the Bolsheviki for
requiring work from the bourgeoisie. What is open to criticism and
condemnation is the fact that compulsory labor for the bourgeoisie
was not a measure of socialization, but of stupid vengeance. The
bourgeois members of society were not placed upon an equality with
other citizens and told that they must share the common lot and give
service for bread. Instead of that, they were made a class apart and
set to the performance of tasks selected only to degrade and humiliate
them. In almost every reference to the subject appearing in the
official Bolshevist press we observe that the bourgeoisie--the class
comprising the organizers of industry and business and almost all the
technical experts in the country--was set to menial tasks which the
most illiterate and ignorant peasants could better do. Just as high
military officers were set to digging trenches and cleaning latrines,
so the civilian bourgeoisie were set to cleaning streets, removing
night soil, and draining ditches, and not even given a chance to render
the vastly greater services they were capable of, in many instances;
services, moreover, of which the country was in dire need. A notable
example of this stupidity was when the advocates of Saratov asked the
local Soviet authorities to permit them to open up an idle soap-factory
to make soap, of which there was a great scarcity. The reply given was
that “_the bourgeoisie could not be suffered to be in competition with
the working-class_.” Not only was this a brutal policy, in view of the
fact that the greater part of the bourgeoisie had been loyal to the
March Revolution; it was as stupid and short-sighted as it was brutal,
for it did not, and could not, secure the maximum services of which
these elements were capable. It is quite clear that, instead of being
dominated by the generous idealism of Socialism, they were mastered by
hatred and a passion for revenge.

Of course the policy pursued toward the bourgeoisie paved the way,
as Lenin intended it to do, for the introduction of the principle of
compulsory labor in general. By pandering to the lowest instincts and
motives of the unenlightened masses, causing them to rejoice at the
enslavement of the formerly rich and powerful, as well as those only
moderately well-to-do, Lenin and his satellites knew well that they
were surely undermining the moral force of those who rejoiced, so
that later they would be incapable of strong resistance against the
application of the same tyranny to themselves. The publication of the
Code of Labor Laws, in 1919, was the next step. This code contains 193
regulations with numerous explanatory notes, with all of which the
ordinary workman, who is a conscript in the fullest sense of the word,
is presumed to be familiar. Only a few of its outstanding features
can be noted here. The principle of compulsion and the extent of its
application are stated in the first article of the Code:

ARTICLE I

_On Compulsory Labor_

1. All citizens of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet
Republic, with the exceptions stated in Section 2 and 3, shall
be subject to compulsory labor.

2. The following persons shall be exempt from compulsory labor:

(_a_) Persons under 16 years of age;

(_b_) All persons over 50 years;

(_c_) Persons who have become incapacitated by injury or
illness.

3. Temporarily exempt from compulsory labor are:

(_a_) Persons who are temporarily incapacitated owing to
illness or injury, for a period necessary for their recovery.

(_b_) Women, for a period of 8 weeks before and 8 weeks after
confinement.

4. All students shall be subject to compulsory labor at the
schools.

5. The fact of permanent or temporary disability shall be
certified after a medical examination by the Bureau of Medical
Survey in the city, district or province, by accident insurance
office or agencies representing the former, according to the
place of residence of the person whose disability is to be
certified.

_Note I._ The rules on the method of examination of disabled
workmen are appended hereto.

_Note II._ Persons who are subject to compulsory labor and
are not engaged in useful public work may be summoned by the
local Soviets for the execution of public work, on conditions
determined by the Department of Labor in agreement with the
local Soviets of trades-unions.

6. Labor may be performed in the form of:

(_a_) Organized co-operation;

(_b_) Individual personal service;

(_c_) Individual special jobs.

7. Labor conditions in government (Soviet) establishments shall
be regulated by tariff rules approved by the Central Soviet
authorities through the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

8. Labor conditions in all establishments (Soviet,
nationalized, public, and private) shall be regulated by
tariff rules drafted by the trades-unions, in agreement with
the directors or owners of establishments and enterprises, and
approved by the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

_Note._ In cases where it is impossible to arrive at an
understanding with the directors or owners of establishments
or enterprises, the tariff rules shall be drawn up by the
trades-unions and submitted for approval to the People’s
Commissariat of Labor.

9. Labor in the form of individual personal service or in the
form of individual special jobs shall be regulated by tariff
rules drafted by the respective trades-unions and approved by
the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

It will be observed that this subjection to labor conscription
applies to “all citizens” except for certain exempted classes. Women,
therefore, are equally liable with men, except for a stated period
before and after childbirth. It will also be observed that apparently
a great deal of control is exercised by the trades-unions. We must
bear in mind, however, at every point, that the trades-unions in
Soviet Russia are not free and autonomous organs of the working-class.
A free trades-union--that is, a trades-union wholly autonomous and
independent of government control, _does not exist in Russia_. The
actual status of Russian trades-unions is set forth in the resolution
adopted at the ninth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, in March,
1920, which provides, that “All decisions of the All-Russian Central
Soviet of Trades-Unions concerning the conditions and organization
of labor are obligatory for all trades-unions and the members of the
Communist Party who are employed in them, and _can be canceled only by
the Central Committee of the Party_.” The hierarchy of the Communist
Party is supreme, the trades-unions, the co-operatives, and the Soviet
Government itself being subordinate to it.

Article II deals with the manner in which the compulsion to labor is to
be enforced. Paragraph 16 of this article provides that “the assignment
of wage-earners to work shall be carried out through the Departments
of Labor Distribution.” Paragraph 24 reads as follows: “_An unemployed
person has no right to refuse an offer of work at his vocation_,
provided the working conditions conform with the standards fixed by the
respective tariff regulations, or in the absence of the same by the
trades-unions.” Paragraphs 27 to 30, inclusive, show the extraordinary
power of the Departments of Labor Distribution over the workers:

27. Whenever workers are required for work outside of their
district, a roll-call of the unemployed registered in the
Department of Labor Distribution shall take place, to ascertain
who are willing to go; if a sufficient number of such should
not be found, _the Department of Labor Distribution shall
assign the lacking number from among the unemployed in the
order of their registration_, provided that those who have
dependents must not be given preference before single persons.

28. If in the Departments of Labor Distribution, within the
limits of the district, there be no workmen meeting the
requirements, the District Exchange Bureau has the right, upon
agreement with the respective trades-union, to send unemployed
of another class approaching as nearly as possible the trade
required.

29. An unemployed person who is offered work outside his
vocation shall be obliged to accept it, on the understanding,
if he so wishes, that this be only temporary, until he receives
work at his vocation.

30. A wage-earner who is working outside his specialty, and
who has stated his wish that this be only temporary, shall
retain his place on the register on the Department of Labor
Distribution until he gets work at his vocation.

It is quite clear from the foregoing that the Department of Labor
Distribution can arbitrarily compel a worker to leave a job satisfying
to him or her and to accept another job and remain at it until given
permission to leave. The worker may be compelled by this power to
leave a desirable job and take up a different line of work, or even to
move to some other locality. It is hardly possible to imagine a device
more effective in liquidating personal grudges or effecting political
pressure. One has only to face the facts of life squarely in order
to recognize the potentiality for evil embodied in this system. What
is there to prevent the Soviet official removing the “agitator,” the
political opponent, for “the good of the party”? What man wants his
sister or daughter to be subject to the menace of such power in the
hands of unscrupulous officials? There is not the slightest evidence
in the record of Bolshevism so far as it has been tried in Russia to
warrant the assumption that only saints will ever hold office in the
Departments of Labor Distribution.

Article V governs the withdrawal of wage-earners from jobs which
do not satisfy them. Paragraph 51 of this article clearly provides
that a worker can only be permitted to resign if his reasons are
approved by what is described as the “respective organ of workmen’s
self-government.” Paragraph 52 provides that if the resignation is
not approved by this authority “the wage-earner must remain at work,
but may appeal from the decision of the committee to the respective
professional unions.” Provision is made for fixing the remuneration of
labor by governmental authority. Article VI, Paragraph 55, provides
that “the remuneration of wage-earners for work in enterprises,
establishments, and institutions employing paid labor ... shall be
fixed by tariffs worked out for each kind of labor.” Paragraph 57
provides that “in working out the tariff rates and determining the
standard remuneration rates, all the wage-earners of a trade shall
be divided into groups and categories and a definite standard of
remuneration shall be fixed for each of them.” Paragraph 58 provides
that “the standard of remuneration fixed by the tariff rates must be at
least sufficient to cover the minimum living expenses _as determined
by the People’s Commissariat of Labor_ for each district of the
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic.” Paragraph 60 provides
that “the remuneration of each wage-earner shall be determined by his
classification in a definite group and category.” Paragraph 61, with an
additional note, explains the method of thus classifying wage-earners.
“Valuation commissions” are established by the “professional
organizations” and their procedure is absolutely determined by the
local Soviet official called the Commissariat of Labor. If a worker
receives more than the standard remuneration fixed, “irrespective of
the pretext and form under which it might be offered and whether it
be paid in only one or in several places of employment”--Paragraph
65--the excess amount so received may be deducted from his next wages,
according to Paragraph 68.

The amount of work to be performed each day is arbitrarily assigned.
Thus, Article VIII, Paragraph 114, provides that “every wage-earner
must during a normal working-day and under normal working conditions
perform the standard amount of work fixed for the category and group in
which he is enrolled.” According to Paragraph 118 of the same article,
“a wage-earner systematically producing less than the fixed standard
may be transferred by decision of the proper valuation commission to
other work in the same group and category, or to a lower group or
category, with a corresponding reduction of wages.” If it is judged
that his failure to maintain the normal output is due to lack of good
faith and to negligence, he may be discharged without notice.

An appendix to Section 80 provides that every wage-earner must carry
a labor booklet. The following description of this booklet shows how
thoroughly registered and controlled labor is in Sovdepia:

1. Every citizen of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet
Republic, upon assignment to a definite group and category
(Section 62 of the present Code), shall receive, free of
charge, a labor booklet.

_Note._ The form of the labor booklets shall be worked out by
the People’s Commissariat of Labor.

2. Each wage-earner, on entering the employment of an
enterprise, establishment, or institution employing paid labor,
shall present his labor booklet to the management thereof, and
on entering the employment of a private individual--to the
latter.

_Note._ A copy of the labor booklet shall be kept by the
management of the enterprise, establishment, institution, or
private individual by whom the wage-earner is employed.

3. All work performed by a wage-earner during the normal
working-day as well as piece-work or overtime work, and all
payments received by him as a wage-earner (remuneration in
money or in kind, subsidies from the unemployment and hospital
funds), must be entered in his labor booklet.

_Note._ In the labor booklet must also be entered the leaves of
absence and sick-leave of the wage-earner, as well as the fines
imposed on him during and on account of his work.

4. Each entry in the labor booklet must be dated and signed by
the person making the entry, and also by the wage-earner (if
the latter is literate), who thereby certifies the correctness
of the entry.

5. The labor booklet shall contain:

(_a_) The name, surname, and date of birth of the wage-earner;

(_b_) The name and address of the trades-union of which the
wage-earner is a member;

(_c_) The group and category to which the wage-earner has been
assigned by the valuation commission.

6. Upon the discharge of a wage-earner, his labor booklet shall
under no circumstances be withheld from him. Whenever an old
booklet is replaced by a new one, the former shall be left in
possession of the wage-earner.

7. In case a wage-earner loses his labor booklet, he shall be
provided with a new one into which shall be copied all the
entries of the lost booklet; in such a case a fee determined
by the rules of internal management may be charged to the
wage-earner for the new booklet.

8. A wage-earner must present his labor booklet upon the
request:

(_a_) Of the managers of the enterprise, establishment, or
institution where he is employed;

(_b_) Of the Department of Labor Distribution;

(_c_) Of the trades union;

(_d_) Of the officials of workmen’s control and of labor
protection;

(_e_) Of the insurance offices or institutions acting as such.

A wireless message from Moscow, dated February 11, 1920, referring to
the actual introduction of these labor booklets, says:

The decree on the establishment of work-books is in course of
realization at Moscow and Petrograd. The book has 32 pages in
it, containing, besides particulars as to the holder’s civil
status, information on the following points:

Persons dependent on the holder, degree of capacity for work,
place where employed, pay allowanced or pension, food-cards
received, and so forth. One of these books should be handed
over to all citizens not less than 16 years old. It constitutes
the proof that the holder is doing his share of productive
work. The introduction of the work-book will make it possible
for us to ascertain whether the law as to work is being
observed by citizens. This being the object, it will only be
handed to workmen and employees in accordance with the lists of
the business concerns in which they are working, to artisans
who can produce a regular certificate of their registration as
being sick or a certificate from the branches of the Public
Welfare Administration, and to women who are engaged in keeping
house, and who produce a certificate by the House Committee.
When the distribution has been completed, all sick persons, not
possessed of work-books, will be sent to their work by the
branch of the Labor Distribution Administration.

We have summarized, in the exact language of the official English
translation published by the Soviet Government Bureau in this country,
the characteristic and noteworthy features of this remarkable scheme.
Surely this is the ultimate madness of bureaucratism, the most complete
subjection of the individual citizen to an all-powerful state since
the days of Lycurgus. At the time of Edward III, by the Statute of
Laborers of 1349, not only was labor enforced on the lower classes, but
men were not free to work where they liked, nor were their employers
permitted to pay them more than certain fixed rates of wages. In
short, the laborer was a serf; and that is the condition to which this
Bolshevist scheme would reduce all the people of Russia except the
privileged bureaucracy. It is a rigid and ruthless rule that is here
set up, making no allowance for individual likes or dislikes, leaving
no opportunity for honest personal initiative. The only variations and
modifications possible are those resulting from favoritism, political
influence, and circumvention of the laws by corruption of official and
other illicit methods.

We must bear in mind that what we are considering is not a body of
facts relating to practical work under pressure of circumstance, but
a carefully formulated plan giving concrete form to certain aims and
intentions. It is not a record of which the Bolsheviki can say, “This
we were compelled to do,” but a prospectus of what they propose to
do. As such the Bolsheviki have caused the wide-spread distribution
of this remarkable Code of Labor Laws in this country and in England,
believing, apparently, that the workers of the two countries must
be attracted by this Communist Utopia. They have relied upon the
potency of slogans and principles long held in honor by the militant
and progressive portion of the working-class in every modern nation,
such as the right to work and the right to assured living income and
leisure, to win approval and support. But they have linked these things
which enlightened workers believe in to a system of despotism abhorrent
to them. After two full years of terrible experience the Bolsheviki
propose, in the name of Socialism and freedom, a tyranny which goes far
beyond anything which any modern nation has known.

It was obvious from the time when this scheme was first promulgated
that it could only be established by strong military measures. No one
who knew anything of Russia could believe that the great mass of the
peasantry would willingly acquiesce in a scheme of government so much
worse than the old serfdom. Nor was it possible to believe that the
organized and enlightened workers of the cities would, as a whole,
willingly and freely place themselves in such bondage. It was not
at all surprising, therefore, to learn that it had been decided to
take advantage of the military situation, and the existence of a vast
organization of armed forces, to introduce compulsory labor as part
of the military system. On December 11, 1919, _The Red Baltic Fleet_,
a Bolshevist paper published for the sailors of the Baltic fleet,
printed an abstract of Trotsky’s report to the Seventh Congress of
Soviets, from which the following significant paragraphs are quoted:

If one speaks of the conclusion of peace within the next
months, such a peace cannot be called a permanent peace. So
long as class states remain, as powerful centers of Imperialism
in the Far East and in America, it is not impossible that the
peace which we shall perhaps conclude in the near future will
again be for us only a long and prolonged respite. So long as
this possibility is not excluded, it is possible that it will
be a matter _not of disarming, but of altering the form of the
armed forces of the state_.

We must get the workmen back to the factories, and the
peasants to the villages, re-establish industries and develop
agriculture. Therefore, the troops must be brought nearer to
the workers, and the regiments to the factories, villages, and
cantons. We must pass to the introduction of the militia system
of armed forces.

There is a scarcely veiled threat to the rest of the world in Trotsky’s
intimation that the peace they hope to conclude will perhaps be only
a prolonged respite. As an isolated utterance, it might perhaps
be disregarded, but it must be considered in the light of, and in
connection with, a number of other utterances upon the same subject.
In the instructions from the People’s Commissar for Labor to the
propagandists sent to create sympathy and support for the Labor Army
scheme among the soldiers we find this striking passage: “The country
must continue to remain armed for many years to come. _Until Socialist
revolution triumphs throughout the world we must continue to be armed
and prepared for eventualities._” A Bolshevist message, dated Moscow,
March 11, 1920, explains that: “The utilization of whole Labor Armies,
retaining the army system of organization, may only be justified from
the point of view of keeping the army intact for military purposes.
As soon as the necessity for this ceases to exist the need to retain
large staffs and administrations will also cease to exist.” There is
not the slightest doubt that the Bolsheviki contemplate the maintenance
of a great army to be used as a labor force until the time arrives when
it shall seem desirable to hurl it against the nations of central and
western Europe in the interests of “world revolution.”

On January 15, 1920, Lenin and Brichkina, president and secretary,
respectively, of the Council of Defense, signed and issued the first
decree for the formation of a Labor Army. The text of the decree
follows:

DECREE OF THE WORKERS’ AND PEASANTS’ COUNCIL OF DEFENSE ON THE FIRST
REVOLUTIONARY LABOR ARMY

1. The Third Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army is to be utilized
for labor purposes. This army is to be considered as a complete
organization; its apparatus is neither to be disorganized nor
split up, and it is to be known under the name of the First
Revolutionary Labor Army.

2. The utilization of the Third Red Army for labor purposes
is a temporary measure. The period is to be determined by a
special regulation of the Council of Defense in accordance
with the military situation as well as with the character of
the work which the army will be able to carry out, and will
especially depend on the practical productivity of the labor
army.

3. The following are the principal tasks to which the forces
and means of the third army are to be applied:

_First_:

(_a_) The preparation of food and forage in accordance with
the regulation of the People’s Commissariat for Food, and the
concentration of these in certain depots:

(_b_) The preparation of wood and its delivery to factories and
railway stations;

(_c_) The organization for this purpose of land transport as
well as water transport;

(_d_) The mobilization of necessary labor power for work on a
national scale;

(_e_) Constructive work within the above limits as well as on a
wider scale, for the purpose of introducing, gradually, further
works.

_Second_:

(_f_) For repair of agricultural implements;

(_g_) Agricultural work, etc.

4. The first duty of the Labor Army is to secure provisions, not below
the Red Army ration, for the local workers in those regions where the
army is stationed; this is to be brought about by means of the army
organs of supply in all those cases where the President of the Food
Commissariat of the Labor Army Council (No. 7) will find that no other
means of securing the necessary provisions for the above-mentioned
workers are to be had.

5. The utilization of the labor of the third army in a certain locality
must take place in the locality in which the principal part of the army
is stationed; this is to be determined exactly by the leading organs
of the army (No. 6) with a subsequent confirmation by the Council of
Defense.

6. The Revolutionary Council of the Labor Army is the organ in charge
of work appointed, with the provision that the locality where the
services of the Labor Army are to be applied is to be the same locality
where the services of the Revolutionary Council of the Labor Army
enjoys economic authority.

7. The Revolutionary Council of the Labor Army is to be composed
of members of the Revolutionary War Council and of authorized
representatives of the People’s Commissariat for Food, the Supreme
Council for Public Economy, the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture,
the People’s Commissariat for Communication, and the People’s
Commissariat for Labor.

An especially authorized Council of Defense which is to enjoy the
rights of presidency of the Council of the Labor Army is to be put at
the head of the above Council.

8. All the questions concerning internal military organizations and
defined by regulations of internal military service and other military
regulations are to be finally settled upon by the Revolutionary War
Council which introduces in the internal life of the army all the
necessary changes arising in consequence of the demands of the economic
application of the army.

9. In every sphere of work (food, fuel, railway, etc.) the final
decision in the matter of organizing this work is to be left with the
representative of the corresponding sphere of the Labor Army Council.

10. In the event of radical disagreement the case is to be transferred
to the Council of Defense.

11. All the local institutions, Councils of Public Economy, Food
Committees, land departments, etc., are to carry out the special
orders and instructions of the Labor Army Council through the latter’s
corresponding members either in its entirety or in that sphere of the
work which is demanded by the application of the mass labor power.

12. All local institutions (councils of public economy, food
committees, etc.) are to remain in their particular localities and
carry out, through their ordinary apparatus, the work which falls to
their share in the execution of the economic plans of the Labor Army
Council; local institutions can be changed, either in structure or in
their functions, on no other condition except with the consent of the
corresponding departmental representatives who are members of the Labor
Army Council, or, in the case of radical changes, with the consent of
the corresponding central department.

13. In the case of work for which individual parts of the army can be
utilized in a casual manner, as well as in the case of those parts
of the army which are stationed outside the chief army, or which can
be transferred beyond the limits of this locality, the Army Council
must in each instance enter into an agreement with the permanent
local institutions carrying out the corresponding work, and as far as
that is practical and meets with no obstacles, the separate military
detachments are to be transferred to their temporary economic disposal.

14. Skilled workers, in so far as they are not indispensable for the
support of the life of the army itself, must be transferred by the
army to the local factories and to the economic institutions generally
under direction of the corresponding representatives of the Labor Army
Council.

_Note_: Skilled labor can be sent to factories under no other condition
except with the consent of those economic organs to which the factory
in question is subject. Members of trades-unions are liable to be
withdrawn from local enterprises for the economic needs in connection
with the problems of the army only with the consent of the local organs.

15. The Labor Army Council must, through its corresponding members,
take all the necessary measures toward inducing the local
institutions of a given department to control, in the localities, the
army detachments and their institutions in the carrying out of the
latter’s share of work without infringing upon the respective by-laws,
regulations, and instructions of the Soviet Republic.

_Note_: It is particularly necessary to take care that the general
state rate of pay is to be observed in the remuneration of peasants for
the delivery of food, for the preparation of wood or other fuel.

16. The Central Statistical Department in agreement with the Supreme
Council for Public Economy and the War Department is instructed to draw
up an estimate defining the forms and period of registration.

17. The present regulation comes into force with the moment of its
publication by telegraph.

_President of the Council of Defense_,

V. ULIANOV (LENIN).
S. BRICHKINA, _Secretary_.

Moscow, _January 15, 1920_.

On January 18, 1920, the _Krasnaya Gazeta_ published the following
order by Trotsky to the First Labor Army:

ORDER TO THE FIRST REVOLUTIONARY LABOR ARMY

1. The First Army has finished its war task, but the enemy is
not completely dispersed. The rapacious imperialists are still
menacing Siberia in the extreme Orient. To the East the armies
paid by the Entente are still menacing Soviet Russia. The bands
of the White Guards are still at Archangel. The Caucasus is
not yet liberated. For this reason the First Russian Army has
not as yet been diverted, but retains its internal unity and
its warlike ardor, in order that it may be ready in case the
Socialist Fatherland should once more call it to new tasks.

2. The First Russian Army, which is, however, desirous of doing
its duty, does not wish to lose any time. During the coming
weeks and months of respite it will have to apply its strength
and all its means to ameliorate the agricultural situation in
this country.

3. The Revolutionary War Council of the First Army will come to
an agreement with the Labor Council. The representatives of the
agricultural institutions of the Red Republic of the Soviets
will work side by side with the members of the Revolutionary
Council.

4. Food-supplies are indispensable to the famished workmen of
the commercial centers. The First Labor Army should make it its
essential task to gather systematically in the region occupied
by it such food-supplies as are there, as well as also to make
an exact listing of what has been obtained, to rapidly and
energetically forward them to the various factories and railway
stations, and load them upon the freight-cars.

5. Wood is needed by commerce. It is the important task of
the Revolutionary Labor Army to cut and saw the wood, and to
transport it to the factories and to the railway stations.

6. Spring is coming; this is the season of agricultural work.
As the productive force of our factories has lessened, the
number of new farm implements which can be delivered has become
insufficient. The peasants have, however, a tolerably large
number of old implements which are in need of repair. The
Revolutionary Labor Army will employ its workshops as well as
its workmen in order to repair such tools and machinery as are
needed. When the season arrives for work in the fields, the Red
cavalry and infantry will prove that they know how to plow the
earth.

7. All members of the army should enter into fraternal
relations with the professional societies[69] of the local
Soviets, remembering that such organizations are those of the
laboring people. All work should be done after having come to
an understanding with them.

[69] _i.e._, trades-unions.

8. Indefatigable energy should be shown during the work, as
much as if it were a combat or a fight.

9. The necessary efforts, as well as the results to be
obtained, should be carefully calculated. Every pound of Soviet
bread, and every log of national wood should be tabulated.
Everything should contribute to the foundation of the Socialist
activities.

10. The Commandants and Commissars should be responsible for
the work of their men while work is going on, as much as if it
were a combat. Discipline should not be relaxed. The Communist
Societies should during the work be models of perseverance and
patience.

11. The Revolutionary Tribunals should punish the lazy and
parasites and the thieves of national property.

12. Conscientious soldiers, workmen, and revolutionary peasants
should be in the first rank. Their bravery and devotion should
serve as an example to others and inspire them to act similarly.

13. The front should be contracted as much as possible. Those
who are useless should be sent to the first ranks of the
workers.

14. Start and finish your work, if the locality permits it,
to the sound of revolutionary hymns and songs. Your task is
not the work of a laborer, but a great service rendered the
Socialist Fatherland.

15. Soldiers of the Third Army, called the First Revolutionary
Army of Labor. Let your example prove a great one. All Russia
will rise to your call. The Radio has already spread throughout
the universe all that the Third Army intends in being
transposed into the First Army of Labor. Soldier Workmen! Do
not lower the red standard!

_The President of the War Council of the
Revolutionary Republic_,

[Signed] TROTSKY.

There is not the slightest doubt where Lenin and Trotsky found the
model for the foregoing orders and the inspiration of the entire
scheme. Almost exactly a century earlier, that is to say in the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, Count Arakcheev, a favorite of
Alexander I, introduced into Russia the militarization of agricultural
labor. Peasant conscripts were sent to the “military settlements,”
formed into battalions under command of army officers, marched in
proper military formation to their tasks, which they performed to
martial music. The arable lands were divided among the owner-settlers
according to the size of their families. Tasks were arbitrarily set for
the workers by the officers; resignation or withdrawal was, of course,
impossible; desertion was punished with great severity. Elaborate
provisions were made by this monarchist autocrat for the housing of the
conscript-settlers, for medical supervision, and for the education of
the children. Everything seems to have been provided for the conscripts
in these settlements except freedom.

Travelers gave most glowing accounts of Arakcheev’s Utopia, just as
later travelers did of the Russia of Nicholas II, and as the Ransomes,
Goodes, Lansburys, and other travelers of to-day are giving of
Bolshevist Russia. But the people themselves were discontented and
unhappy, a fact evidenced by the many serious uprisings. Robbed of
freedom, all initiative taken from them, so that they became abject and
cowed and almost devoid of will power, like dumb beasts yet under the
influence of desperate and daring leaders, they rose in revolt again
and again with brutal fury. Arakcheev’s Utopia was not intended to be
oppressive or unjust, we may well believe. There are evidences that it
was conceived in a noble and even generous spirit. It inevitably became
cruel and oppressive, however, as every such scheme that attempts to
disregard the variations in human beings, and to compel them to conform
to a single pattern or plan, must do. At a meeting of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party in Petrograd Trotsky protested that
only the “petty bourgeois intellectuals” could liken his system of
militarized labor to Arakcheev’s, but the facts speak for themselves.
And in all Russia’s tragic history there are no blacker pages than
those which record her great experiments with militarized labor.

Addressing the joint meeting of the third Russian Congress of
Soviets of National Economy, the Moscow Soviet of Deputies and the
Administrative Boards of the Trades-Unions, on January 25, 1920,
Trotsky made a report which required more than two hours for its
delivery. Defining labor conscription, he said:

We shall succeed if qualified and trained workers take part
in productive labor. They must all be registered and provided
with work registration books. Trades-unions must register
qualified workmen in the villages. Only in those localities
where trades-union methods are inadequate other methods must
be introduced, in particular that of compulsion, because labor
conscription gives the state the right to tell the qualified
workman who is employed on some unimportant work in his
villages, “You are obliged to leave your present employment and
go to Sormova or Kolomna, because there your work is required.”

Labor conscription means that qualified workmen who leave
the army must take their work registration books and proceed
to places where they are required, where their presence
is necessary to the economic system of the country. Labor
conscription gives the Labor State the right to order a workman
to leave the village industry in which he is engaged and to
work in state enterprises which require his services. We
must feed these workmen and guarantee them the minimum food
ration. A short time ago we were confronted by the problem of
defending the frontiers of the Soviet Republic, now our aim is
to collect, load, and transport a sufficient quantity of bread,
meat, fats, and fish to feed the working-class. We are not only
confronted by the question of the industrial proletariat, but
also by the question of utilizing unskilled labor.

* * * * *

There is still one way to the reorganization of national
economy--the way of uniting the army and labor and changing the
military detachments of the army into labor detachments of a
labor army. Many in the army have already accomplished their
military task, but they cannot be demobilized as yet. Now that
they have been released from their military duties, they must
fight against economic ruin and against hunger; they must work
to obtain fuel, peat, and inflammable slate; they must take
part in building, in clearing the lines of snow, in repairing
roads, building sheds, grinding flour, and so on. We have
already got several of these armies. These armies have already
been allotted their tasks. One must obtain foodstuffs for the
workmen of the district in which it was formerly stationed, and
there also it will cut down wood, cart it to the railways, and
repair engines. Another will help in the laying down of railway
lines for the transport of crude oil. A third will be used for
repairing agricultural implements and machines, and in the
spring for taking part in working the land. At the present time
among the working masses there must be the greatest exactitude
and conscientiousness, together with responsibility to the end;
there must be utter strictness and severity, both in small
matters and in great. If the most advanced workmen in the
country will devote all their thoughts, all their will, and all
their revolutionary duty to the cause of regulating economic
affairs, then I have no doubt that we shall lead Russia on a
new free road, to the confounding of our enemies and the joy of
our friends.

Going into further details concerning the scheme, Trotsky said,
according to _Izvestia_, January 29, 1920:

Wherein lies the meaning of this transformation? We possess
armies which have accomplished their military tasks. _Can
we demobilize them? In no case whatever. If we have learned
anything in the civil war it is certainly circumspection._
While keeping the army under arms, we may use it for economic
purposes, with the _possibility of sending it to the front in
case of need_.

Such is the present condition of the Third Soviet Army at
Ekaterinburg, some units of which are quartered in the
direction of Omsk. It numbers no less than _150,000 men, of
whom 7,000 are Communists and 9,000 are sympathizers_. Such
an army is class-conscious to a high degree. No wonder it
has offered itself for employment for labor purposes. The
labor army must perform definite and simple tasks requiring
the application of mass force, such as lumbering operations,
peat-cutting, collecting grain, etc. Trades-unions, political
and Soviet organizations must, of course, establish the closest
contact with the Labor Army. An experienced and competent
workman is appointed as chief of staff of this army, and
a former chief of staff, an officer of the general staff,
is his assistant. The Operative Department is renamed the
Labor-Operative Department, and controls requisitions and the
execution of the labor-operative orders and the labor bulletins.

A great number of labor artels, with a well-ordered telegraph
and telephone system, is thus at our disposal. They receive
orders and report on their execution the same day. This is
but the beginning of our work. There will be many drawbacks
at first, much will have to be altered, but the basis itself
cannot be unsound, as it is the same on which our entire Soviet
structure is founded.

In this case we possess several thousand Ural workmen, who
are placed at the head of the army, and a mass of men under
the guidance of these advanced workmen. What is it? It is but
a reflection on a small scale of Soviet Russia, founded upon
millions upon millions of peasants, and the guiding apparatus
is formed of more conscious peasants and an overwhelming
majority of industrial workers. This first experiment is being
made by the other armies likewise. It is intended to utilize
the Seventh Army, quartered at the Esthonian frontier, for
peat-cutting and slate-quarrying. If these labor armies are
capable of extracting raw materials, of giving new life to our
transport, of providing corn, fuel, etc., to our main economic
centers, then our economic organism will revive.

This experiment is of the most vital moral and material
importance. We cannot mobilize the peasants by means of
trades-unions, and the trades-unions themselves do not possess
any means of laying hold of millions of peasants. They can best
be mobilized on a military footing. Their labor formations will
have to be organized on a military model--labor platoons, labor
companies, labor battalions, disciplined as required, for we
shall have to deal with masses which have not passed through
trades-union trading. This is a matter of the near future. We
shall be compelled to create military organizations such as
exist already in the form of our armies. It is therefore urgent
to utilize them by adapting them to economic requirements. That
is exactly what we are doing now.

At the ninth Congress of the Communist Party in March, according to
_Izvestia_ of March 21, 1920, Trotsky made another report on the
militarization of labor, in which he said:

At the present time the militarization of labor is all the more
needed in that we have now come to the mobilization of peasants
as the means of solving the problems requiring mass action.
We are mobilizing the peasants and forming them into labor
detachments which very closely resemble military detachments.
Some of our comrades say, however, that even though in the case
of the working power of mobilized peasantry it is necessary to
apply militarization, a military apparatus need not be created
when the question involves skilled labor and industry because
there we have professional unions performing the function of
organizing labor. This opinion, however, is erroneous.

At present it is true that professional unions distribute labor
power at the demand of social-economic organizations, but what
means and methods do they possess for insuring that the workman
who is sent to a given factory actually reports at that factory
for work?

We have in the most important branches of our industry more
than a million workmen on the lists, but not more than eight
hundred thousand of them are actually working, and where are
the remainder? They have gone to the villages, or to other
divisions of industry, or into speculation. Among soldiers this
is called desertion, and in one form or another the measures
used to compel soldiers to do their duty should be applied in
the field of labor.

_Under a unified system of economy the masses of workmen should
be moved about, ordered and sent from place to place in exactly
the same manner as soldiers. This is the foundation of the
militarization of labor, and without this we are unable to
speak seriously of any organization of industry on a new basis
in the conditions of starvation and disorganization existing
to-day...._

In the period of transition in the organization of labor,
compulsion plays a very important part. The statement that free
labor--namely, freely employed labor--produces more than labor
under compulsion is correct only when applied to feudalistic
and bourgeois orders of society.

It is, of course, too soon to attempt anything in the nature of a final
judgment upon this new form of industrial serfdom. In his report to
the ninth Congress of the Communist Party, already quoted, Trotsky
declared that the belief that free labor is more productive than forced
labor is “correct only when applied to feudalistic and bourgeois
orders of society.” The implication is that it will be otherwise in
the Communistic society of the future, but of that Trotsky can have no
knowledge. His declaration springs from faith, not from knowledge.
All that he or anybody else can know is that the whole history of
mankind hitherto shows that free men work better than men who are not
free. Arakcheev’s militarized peasants were less productive than other
peasants not subject to military rule. So far as the present writer’s
information goes, no modern army when engaged in productive work has
equaled civilian labor in similar lines, judged on a per-capita basis.
Slaves, convicts, and conscripts have everywhere been notoriously poor
producers.

Will it be better if the conscription is done by the Bolsheviki, and if
the workers sing revolutionary songs, instead of the hymns to the Czar
sung by Arakcheev’s conscript settlers, or the religious melodies sung
by the negro slaves in our Southern States? Those whose only guide to
the future is the history of the past will doubt it; those who, like
Trotsky, see in the past no lesson for the future confidently believe
that it will. The thoughtful and candid mind wonders whether the
following paragraph, published by the _Krasnaya Gazeta_ in March, may
not be regarded as a foreshadowing of Bolshevist disillusionment:

The attempts of the Soviet power to utilize the Labor Army for
cleansing Petrograd from mud, excretions, and rubbish have not
met with success. In addition to the usual Labor Army rations,
the men were given an increased allowance of bread, tobacco,
etc. Nevertheless, it was found impossible to get not only any
intensive work, but even, generally speaking, any real work at
all out of the Labor Army men. Recourse, therefore, had to
be had to the usual means--the men had to be paid a premium
of 1,000 rubles for every tramway-truck of rubbish unloaded.
Moreover, the tramway brigade had to be paid 300 rubles for
every third trip.

In hundreds of statements by responsible Bolshevist officials and
journals the wonderful morale of the Petrograd workers has been
extolled and held up to the rest of Russia for emulation. If these
things are possible in “Red Peter” at the beginning, what may we not
expect elsewhere--and later? The _Novaya Russkaya Zhizn_, published at
Helsingfors, is an anti-Bolshevist paper. The following quotation from
its issue of March 6, 1920, is of interest and value only in so far as
it directs attention to a Bolshevist official report:

In the Soviet press we find a brilliant illustration (in
figures) of the latest “new” tactics proclaimed by the
Communists of the Third International on the subject of
soldiers “stacking their rifles and taking to axes, saws, and
spades.”

“The 56th Division of the Petrograd Labor Army, during the
fortnight from 1st to 14th February, loaded 60 cars with
wood-fuel, transported 225 sagenes,[70] stacked 43 cubic
sagenes, and sawed up 39 cubic sagenes.” Besides this, the
division dug out “several locomotives” from under the snow.

[70] One sagene equals seven feet.

In Soviet Russia a regiment is about 1,000 strong, and a
division is about 4,000. In the course of a fortnight the
division worked twelve days. According to our calculation this
works out, on an average, at a fraction over one billet of wood
per diem per Red Army man handled by him in one way or another.

Thus it took 4,000 men a fortnight to do what could, in former
days, be easily performed by ten workmen.

Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks have not yet calculated the cost
to the Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government of the wood-fuel
which was loaded, transported, stacked, and sawn up by the 56th
Division of the Labor Army in the course of a fortnight.

These quotations are not offered as proof of the uneconomical character
of compulsory labor. It is useless to argue that question further
than we have already done. But there is a question of vastly greater
importance than the volume of production--namely, the effect upon the
human elements involved, the producers themselves. It is quite clear
that this universal conscription of the laborers cannot be carried
out without a large measure of adscription to the jobs assigned them,
however modified in individual cases. It is equally certain that
under the conditions described by Lenin and Trotsky in the official
utterances we have quoted, nothing worthy the name of personal freedom
can by any possibility exist. The condition of the workers under such
a system cannot be fundamentally different from that of the natives of
Paraguay in the theocratic-communist régime established by the Jesuits
in the seventeenth century, or from that of Arakcheev’s militarized
serfs. External and superficial differences there may be, but none of
fundamental importance. The Bolshevist régime may be less brutal and
more humane than Arakcheev’s, but so was the Jesuit rule in Paraguay.
Yet in the latter, as in the former, the workers were reduced to the
condition of mere automatons until, led by daring spirits, they rose in
terrible revolt of unparalleled brutality.

Such is the militarization of labor in the Bolshevist paradise, and
such is the light that history throws upon it. We do not wonder that
_Pravda_ had to admit, on March 28, 1920, that mass-meetings to protest
against the new system were being held in all parts of Soviet Russia.
That the Russian workers will submit for long to the new tyranny is,
happily, unthinkable.

XIV

LET THE VERDICT BE RENDERED

The men and women of America are by the force of circumstance impaneled
as a jury to judge the Bolshevist régime. The evidence submitted in
these pages is before them. It is no mere chronicle of scandal; neither
is it a cunningly wrought mosaic of rumors, prejudiced inferences,
exaggerated statements by hostile witnesses, sensational incidents and
utterances, selected because they are calculated to provoke resentment.
On the contrary, the most scrupulous care has been taken to confine
the case to the well-established and acknowledged characteristic
features of the Bolshevist régime. The bulk of the evidence cited
comes from Bolshevist sources of the highest possible authority and
responsibility. The non-Bolshevist witnesses are, without exception,
men of high character, identified with the international Socialist
movement. There is not a reactionist or an apologist for the capitalist
order of society among them. In each case special attention has been
directed to their anti-Bolshevist views, so that the jury can make
full allowance therefor. Moreover, in no instance has the testimony
of witnesses of anti-Bolshevist views been cited without ample
corroborative evidence from responsible and authoritative Bolshevist
sources. The jury must now pass upon this evidence and render its
verdict.

It is urged by the Bolsheviki and by their defenders that the time for
passing judgment has not yet arrived; that we are not yet in possession
of sufficient evidence to warrant a decision. Neither the Bolsheviki
nor their defenders have the right to make this plea, for the simple
reason that they themselves have long since demanded that, with
less than a thousandth part of the testimony now before us, we pass
judgment--and, of course, give our unqualified approval to Bolshevism
and its works. It is a matter of record and of common knowledge that
soon after the Bolshevist régime was instituted in Russia a vigorous,
systematic propaganda in its favor and support was begun in all the
western nations, including the United States. By voice and pen the
makers of this propaganda called upon the people of the western nations
to adopt Bolshevism. They presented glowing pictures of the Bolshevist
Utopia, depicting it, not as an experiment of uncertain outcome, to be
watched with sympathetic interest, but as an achievement so great, so
successful and beneficent, that to refrain from copying it was both
stupid and wrong. In this country, as in the other western nations,
pamphlets extolling the merits of the Soviet régime were extensively
circulated by well-organized groups, while certain “Liberal” weeklies
devoted themselves to the task of presenting Bolshevism as a great
advance in political and economic practice, a triumph of humanitarian
idealism. Organizations were formed for the purpose of molding our
public opinion in favor of Bolshevism.

It was not until this pro-Bolshevist propaganda was well under way
that anything in the nature of a counter-propaganda was begun. For
a considerable period of time this counter-propaganda in defense of
existing democratic forms of government was relatively weak, and even
now it has to be admitted that the pro-Bolshevist books and pamphlets
in circulation in this country greatly outnumber those on the other
side. In view of these facts, the defenders of Bolshevism have no moral
right to demand suspension of judgment now. They themselves rushed to
the bar of public opinion with a flimsy case, composed in its entirety
of _ex parte_ and misleading statements by interested witnesses, many
of them perjured, and demanded an instant verdict of approval. Upon
what intellectual or moral grounds, then, shall others be denied the
right to appear before that same court of public opinion, with a much
more complete case, composed mainly of unchallenged admissions and
records of the Bolsheviki themselves, and to ask for a contrary verdict?

There is not the slightest merit in the claim that we do not possess
sufficient evidence to warrant a conclusive verdict in the case.
Whether the Soviet form of government, basing suffrage upon occupation
and economic functioning, is better adapted for Russia than the types
of representative parliamentary government familiar to us in the
western nations, does not enter into the case at all. The issue is
not Sovietism, but Bolshevism. It is the tragic failure of Bolshevism
with which we are concerned. It has failed to give the people freedom
and failed to give them bread. We know that there is no freedom in
Russia, and, what is more, that freedom can never be had upon the basis
of the Bolshevist philosophy. Whether in Russia or in this country,
government must rest upon the consent of the governed in order to
merit the designation of free government; upon any other basis it must
be tyrannical. It is as certain now as it will be a generation or a
century hence, as certain as that yesterday belongs to the past and is
irrevocable, that Bolshevism is government by a minority imposed upon
the majority by force; that its sanctions are not the free choice and
consent of the governed.

We know as much now as our descendants will know a couple of centuries
hence concerning the great fundamental issues involved in this
controversy. More than seven centuries have elapsed since the signing
of Magna Charta at Runnimede. Upon every page of the history of the
Anglo-Saxon people, from that day in June, 1215, to the present, it is
plainly written that government which does not rest upon the consent
of the governed cannot satisfy free men. Throughout that long period
the moral and intellectual energy of the race has been devoted to the
attainment of the ideal of universal and equal suffrage as the basis
of free government. There are many persons who do not believe in that
ideal, and it is possible to bring against it arguments which do not
lack plausibility or force. Czar Nicholas II did not believe in that
ideal; George III did not believe in it; Nicolai Lenin does not believe
in it. Lincoln did believe in it; Marx believed in it; the American
people believe in it. At this late day it is not necessary to argue
the merits of democratic government. The consensus of the opinion of
mankind, based upon long experience, favors government resting upon
the will of the majority, with proper safeguards for the rights of the
minority, as against government by minorities however constituted.
Bolshevism, admittedly based upon the theory of rule by a minority
of the people, thus runs counter to the experience and judgment of
civilized mankind in every nation. In Russia a democratic government
conforming to the experience and judgment of civilized and free peoples
was being set up when the Bolsheviki by violence destroyed the attempt.

More conclusive, however, is the moral judgment of the conduct of the
Bolsheviki as exemplified by their attitude toward the Constituent
Assembly: During the summer of 1917, the period immediately preceding
the _coup d’état_ of November, while the Provisional Government under
Kerensky was engaged in making preparations for the holding of the
Constituent Assembly, the Bolsheviki professed to believe that the
Provisional Government was not loyal to the Constituent Assembly, and
that there was danger that this instrument of popular sovereignty
would be crippled, if not wholly destroyed, unless Kerensky and his
associates were replaced by men and women more thoroughly devoted to
the Constituent Assembly than they. It was as champions and defenders
of the Constituent Assembly that the Bolsheviki obtained the power
which enabled them to overthrow the Provisional Government. As late as
October 25th Trotsky denounced Kerensky, charging him with conspiring
to prevent the convocation of the Constituent Assembly. He demanded
that the powers of government be taken over by the Soviets, which
would, he said, convoke the Assembly on December 12th, the date
assigned for it. Immediately after the _coup d’état_, the triumphant
Bolsheviki, at the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, announced
that “pending the calling together of the Constituent Assembly, a
Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government is to be formed, which
is to be called the Council of People’s Commissaries.” On the day
following the _coup d’état_, November 8, 1917, Lenin made this very
positive and explicit statement at the Soviet Congress:

As a democratic government, we cannot disregard the will of
the masses, even though we disagree with it. In the fires of
life, applying the decree in practice, carrying it out on
the spot, the peasants will themselves understand where the
truth is. _And even if the peasants will continue to follow
the Socialists-Revolutionists, and even if they will return a
majority for that Party in the elections to the Constituent
Assembly, we shall still say--let it be thus!_ Life is the best
teacher, and it will show who was right. And let the peasants
from their end, and us from ours, solve this problem. Life
will compel us to approach each other in the general current
of revolutionary activity, in the working out of new forms of
statehood. We should keep abreast of life; we must allow the
masses of the people full freedom of creativeness.

On that same day the “land decree” was issued. It began with these
words: “The land problem in its entirety can be solved only by the
national Constituent Assembly.” Three days after the revolt Lenin, as
president of the People’s Commissaries, published a decree, stating:

1. That the elections to the Constituent Assembly shall be held
on November 25th, the day we set aside for this purpose.

2. All electoral committees, all local organizations, the
Councils of Workmen’s, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Delegates and
the soldiers’ organizations at the front are to bend every
effort toward safeguarding the freedom of the voters and fair
play at the elections to the Constituent Assembly, which will
be held on the appointed date.

If language has any meaning at all, by these declarations the
Bolsheviki were pledged to recognize and uphold the Constituent
Assembly.

As the electoral campaign proceeded and it became evident that the
Bolsheviki would not receive the support of the great mass of the
voters, their organs began to adopt a very critical attitude toward the
Constituent Assembly. There was a thinly veiled menace in the following
passages from an article published in _Pravda_ on November 18, 1917,
while the electoral campaign was in full swing:

_To expect from the Constituent Assembly a painless solution
of all our accursed problems not only savors of parliamentary
imbecility, but is also dangerous politically...._ The victory
of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison in the November
revolution furnishes the only possible guaranty of the
convocation of the Constituent Assembly, and, what is not less
important, assures success to such a solution of our political
and social problems which the War and the Revolution have
made the order of the day. The convocation of the Constituent
Assembly stands or falls with the Soviet power.

The elections to the Constituent Assembly were held in a large majority
of electoral districts on the 12th, 19th, and 26th of November,
1917--that is, after the _coup d’état_, in the full tide of Bolshevist
enthusiasm. The Bolsheviki were in power, and there is abundant
evidence that they resorted to almost every known method of coercion
and intimidation to secure a result favorable to themselves. Of 703
deputies elected in 54 out of a total of 81 election districts, only
168 belonged to the Bolshevist Party. At the same time the Party of
Socialists-Revolutionists proper, not reckoning the organizations of
the same party among other nationalities of Russia, won twice that
number of seats--namely, 338. Out of a total of 36,257,960 votes
cast in 54 election districts the Bolshevist Party counted barely 25
per cent. The votes cast for their candidates amounted to 9,023,963,
whereas the Socialists-Revolutionists polled 20,893,734--that is, 58
per cent. of all the votes cast.

When the election results were known _Pravda_ and _Izvestia_ both took
the position that the victorious people did not need a Constituent
Assembly; that a new instrument, greatly superior to the old and
“obsolete” democratic instrument, had been created. On December 1,
1917, _Pravda_ said: “If the lines of action of the Soviets and the
Constituent Assembly should diverge, if there should arise between them
any disagreements, the question will arise as to who expresses better
the will of the masses. _We think it is the Soviets who through their
peculiar organization express more clearly, more correctly, and more
definitely the will of the workers, soldiers, and peasants...._ This
is why the Soviets will have to propose to the Constituent Assembly to
adopt as the constitution of the Russian Republic, not that political
system which forms the basis of its convocation (_i.e._, Democracy),
but the Soviet system, the constitution of the Republic of Workers’,
soldiers’, and Peasants’ Soviets.” On December 7, 1917, the Executive
Committee of the Soviet power published a resolution which indicated
that this self-constituted authority, despite the most solemn pledges,
was already tampering with the newly elected Constituent Assembly. The
resolution asserted that the Soviet power had the right to issue writs
for new elections where a majority of the voters expressed themselves
as dissatisfied with the result of the elections already held. In other
words, notwithstanding the fact that the elections for the Constituent
Assembly had been held in November, while the Bolsheviki were in power,
and the first meeting of that body was scheduled for December 12th, new
elections might be ordered by the Soviet power in response to a request
from the majority of the electorate. That the elections had gone so
overwhelmingly against the Bolsheviki, most of their candidates being
badly defeated, throws a sinister light upon this decision. _Pravda_
demanded that the leading members of the Constitutional-Democratic
Party be arrested, including those elected to the Constituent
Assembly, and on December 13, 1917, it published this decree of
the Council of People’s Commissaries: “The leading members of the
Constitutional-Democratic Party, as a party of enemies of the people,
are to be arrested and brought to trial before the Revolutionary
Tribunals.”

On December 26, 1917, Lenin published in _Pravda_ a series of nineteen
“theses” concerning the Constituent Assembly. He therein set forth
the doctrine that although the elections had taken place after the
Bolshevist _coup d’état_, and under the authority and protection of
the temporary Soviet power, yet the elections gave no clear indication
of the real mind of the masses of the people, because, forsooth, the
Socialists-Revolutionists Party, whose candidates had been elected in
a majority of the constituencies, had divided into a Right Wing and a
Left Wing subsequent to the elections. That the differences between
these factions would be fully threshed out in the Constituent Assembly
was obvious. Nevertheless, Lenin announced that the Constituent
Assembly just elected was not suitable. Again we are compelled to
connect this announcement with the fact that the Bolsheviki had not
succeeded in winning the support of the electorate. In these tortuous
logomachies we encounter the same immoral doctrine that we have
noticed in Lenin’s discussion of the demand for freedom of speech,
publication, and assemblage. The demand for the convocation of the
Constituent Assembly had been “an entirely just one in the program
of revolutionary Social-Democracy” in the past, but now with the
Bolsheviki in power it was a different matter! Whereas the Soviets
had been declared to be the loyal protectors of the Constituent
Assembly, Lenin’s new declaration was, “The Soviet Republic represents
not only a higher form of democratic institutions (in comparison
with the middle-class republic and the Constituent Assembly as its
consummation), it is also the sole form which renders possible the
least painful transition to Socialism.”

When the Constituent Assembly finally convened on January 18, 1918,
there were sailors and Lettish troops in the hall armed with rifles,
hand-grenades, and machine-guns, placed there to intimidate the elected
representatives of the people. The Bolshevist delegates demanded the
adoption of a declaration by the Assembly which was tantamount to a
formal abdication. One of the paragraphs in this declaration read:
“Supporting the Soviet rule and _accepting the orders of the Council
of People’s Commissaries_, the Constituent Assembly acknowledges its
duty to outline a form for the reorganization of society.” When the
Constituent Assembly, which represented more than thirty-six million
votes, declined to adopt this declaration, the Bolsheviki withdrew and
later, by force of arms, dispersed the Assembly. It was subsequently
promised that arrangements for the election of a new Constituent
Assembly would be made, but, as all the world knows, _no such elections
have been held to this time_.

At the Congress of the Bolshevist Party--now Communist Party--held
in February, 1918, Lenin set forth a brand-new set of principles for
adoption as a program. He declared that the transition to Socialism
necessarily presupposes that there can be “no liberty and democracy
for all, but only for the exploited working-classes, for the sake of
their liberation from exploitation”; that it requires “the automatic
exclusion of the exploiting classes, and of the rich representatives of
the petty bourgeoisie” and “the abolition of parliamentary government.”
On the basis of these principles the Constitution of the Russian
Socialist Federated Soviet Republic was developed.

To say that we are not yet in a position to judge such a record as
this is an insult to the intelligence. A century hence the record will
stand precisely as it is and the base treachery and duplicity of the
Bolsheviki will be neither more nor less obvious. The betrayal of the
Constituent Assembly by the Bolsheviki constitutes one of the blackest
crimes in the history of politics and is incapable of defense by any
honest democrat. It is only necessary to imagine a constitutional
convention representing the free choice of the electorate in any state
of the Union thus dealt with by a political faction representing only
a small minority of the population to arrive at a just estimate of its
infamous character. As the evidence drawn from official Bolshevist
sources shows, the Bolsheviki have not respected the integrity of the
Soviet any more than they respected that of the Constituent Assembly.
When Soviet elections have gone against them they have not hesitated
to suppress the Soviets. Is there any room for rational doubt what the
verdict of decent liberty-loving and law-respecting men and women ought
to be? The Bolshevist régime was conceived in dishonor and born in
infamy.

We are as fully competent to judge the Red Terror organized and
maintained by the Bolsheviki as our descendants will be. The civilized
world has long since made up its mind concerning the Reign of Terror in
the French Revolution. Contemporary foreign opinion became the judgment
of posterity. That it did not help the cause of freedom and democracy,
which the Revolution as a whole served, is so plainly apparent and so
universally admitted that it need not be argued. It rendered aid only
to the reaction. When the leaders of the Bolsheviki proclaimed their
intention of copying the methods of the Reign of Terror _it was already
possible to form a just judgment of the spirit of their undertaking_.
The civilized world had no difficulty in judging the conduct of the
Germans in shooting innocent hostages during the war. Neither has
it any difficulty in making up its mind concerning the wholesale
shooting of innocent hostages by the Bolsheviki. From their own records
we have read their admissions that hundreds and thousands of such
hostages--men, women, and children--who were not even accused of crime,
were shot down in cold blood. To say that we lack sufficient evidence
to pronounce judgment upon such crimes is tantamount to a confession of
lacking elemental moral sense.

It is sometimes said that these things are but the violent birth pangs
which inevitably accompany the birth of a new social order. With such
flimsy evasions it is difficult to have patience. This specious defense
utterly lacks moral and intellectual sincerity. It is a craven coward’s
plea. If we are to use the facts and the language of obstetrics to
illustrate the great Russian tragedy, at least let us be honest and
use them with some regard to the essential realities. In terms of
obstetrics, Russia in 1917 was like unto a woman in the agony of her
travail. From March onward she labored to give birth to her child, the
long-desired democratic freedom. She was carefully watched and tenderly
cared for by the accoucheur, the Provisional Government. At the
critical moment of her delivery a ruthless brute drove the accoucheur
away from her side, brutally maltreated her, strangled her newly born
infant, and in its place substituted a hideous monstrosity. That is the
only true application of the obstetrical simile to the realities of the
Russian tragedy. The sufferings of Russia under the Bolsheviki have
nothing to do with the natural birth pains of the Russian Revolution.
Nobody ever expected the Russian Revolution to be accomplished without
suffering and hardship; revolutions do not come that way. For all the
natural and necessary pains of such a profound event as the birth of
a new social order every friend of Russian freedom was prepared. What
was not foreseen or anticipated by anybody was that when the agony of
parturition was practically at an end, and the birth of the new order
an accomplished fact, such a brutal assault would be made upon the
maternal body of Russia. It is upon this crime, infamous beyond infamy,
that the great jury of civilized public opinion is asked to pronounce
its condemnation.

There is absolutely no justification for the view that the evils of the
Bolshevist régime, and especially its terroristic features, should be
regarded as the inevitable incidental evil accompaniments of a great
beneficent process. Neither is any useful purpose served by dragging
in the French Revolution. The champions of Bolshevism cite that great
event and assert that everybody now acknowledges that it was a great
liberating force, a notable advance in the evolution of freedom and
democracy, and that nobody now condemns it on account of the Reign of
Terror.

This argument is the result of a lamentable misreading of history,
where it is not a deliberate and carefully studied deception. No
honest parallel can be drawn between the French Revolution and the
Bolshevist Counter-Revolution. That there are certain similarities
between the revolutionary movement of eighteenth-century France and
that of twentieth-century Russia is fairly obvious. In both cases the
revolutions were directed against corrupt, inefficient, and oppressive
monarchical absolutism. In France in 1789 the peasantry formed about
75 per cent. of the population, the bourgeoisie about 20 per cent.,
the proletariat about 3 per cent., and the “privileged” class about
1 per cent. In Russia in 1917 the peasantry amounted to something
over 85 per cent. of the population, the bourgeoisie--the merchants,
manufacturers, tradesmen, and investors--to about 9 per cent., the
proletariat to about 3 per cent., and the nobility and clergy to 1 per
cent. Both in France and in Russia the peasantry was identified with
the struggle against monarchical absolutism, being motivated by great
agrarian demands.

Moreover, the similarities extend to the moral and psychological
factors involved. In the French Revolution, precisely as in the
Russian, we see a great mass of illiterate peasants led by a few
intellectuals, abstract thinkers wholly without practical experience
in government or economic organization. In both cases we find a naïve
Utopianism, a conviction that a sudden transformation of the whole
social order could be easily effected. What the shibboleths of Karl
Marx are to the Bolsheviki the shibboleths of Rousseau were to many of
the leaders of the French Revolution. And just as in 1789 there was a
pathetic dependence upon _anarchie spontanée_, a conviction, wholly
non-rational and exclusively mystical, that in the chaos and disorder
creative powers latent in the masses would be discovered--itself an
evidence of the purely abstract character of their thinking--so it was
in Russia in 1917. The revolution which overthrew the absolutism of
Nicholas II of Russia repeated many of the characteristic features of
that which overthrew the absolutism of Louis XVI of France.

Yet the true parallel to the French Revolution is not the Bolshevist
_coup d’état_, but the Revolution of March, 1917. It was not the
Bolshevist revolution that overturned the throne of the Romanovs and
destroyed czarism. That was done by the March Revolution. Whereas the
French Revolution was a revolution against a corrupt and oppressive
monarchy, the Bolshevist revolt was a counter-revolution against
democracy. The Bolsheviki had played only a very insignificant part
in the revolution against czarism. They rose against the Provisional
Government of the triumphant people. This Provisional Government
represented the forces that had overthrown czarism; it was not a
reactionary body of aristocrats and monarchists, but was mainly
composed of Socialists and radicals and was thoroughly devoted to
republicanism and democracy. It had immediately adopted as its
program all that the French Revolution attained, and more: it had
placed suffrage upon an even more generous basis, and dealt much more
thoroughly with the land problem. The Directory put Gracchus Babeuf to
death for advocating the redistribution of the land in 1795, but the
Provisional Government of Russia did not hesitate to declare for that
in 1917 and to create the machinery for carrying it into effect. At the
very moment when it was overthrown by the Bolsheviki it was engaged
in bringing about the election of the Constituent Assembly, the most
democratic body of its kind in history.

Finally, just as the French Revolution was characterized by a
passionate national consciousness and pride, so that it is customary
to speak of it as the birth of French nationalism, so the Provisional
Government represented a newly awakened Russian nationalism.
Bolshevism, on the contrary, in its early stages, at any rate,
represented the opposite, a violent antagonism to the ideology and
institutions of nationalism. The French in 1793, and throughout
the long struggle, were zealous for France and in her defense; the
Bolsheviki cared nothing for Russia and would sacrifice her upon the
altar of world revolution. In view of all these facts, it is simply
absurd to liken the Bolshevist phase of the Russian Revolution, the
counter-revolutionary phase of it, to the French Revolution.

There were phases of the French Revolution which can be fairly likened
to the Bolshevist phase of the Russian Revolution. There is a striking
analogy between the Reign of Terror instituted in 1793 and the Red
Terror which began in Russia early in 1918. The Montagnards and the
Bolsheviki are akin; the appeal of the former to the sansculottes
and of the latter to the proletariat are alike. In both cases we
see a brutal and desperate attempt to establish the dictatorial
rule of a class comprising only 3 per cent. of the population.
There is an equally striking analogy between the struggle of the
Girondins against the Jacobins in France and the struggle of the
Socialists-Revolutionists and Social Democrats against the Bolsheviki.
In Russia at the beginning of 1920 the significant term “Thermidorians”
began to be used. To compare Bolshevism to the Jacobin phase of the
French Revolution is quite a different matter from comparing it to the
Revolution as a whole.

The permanent achievements of the French Revolution afford no
justification for the Reign of Terror. The Revolution succeeded in
spite of the Terror, not because of it, and the success was attended
by evils which might easily have been averted. To condemn the Terror
is not to decry the Revolution. Similarly, the Russian Revolution will
succeed, we may well believe, not because of the Red Terror or of
the Bolsheviki, but in spite of them. The bitterest opponents of the
Bolsheviki are the most stalwart defenders of the Revolution. No appeal
to the history of the French Revolution can extenuate or palliate the
crimes of the Bolsheviki. Perhaps their greatest crime, the one which
history will regard as most heinous, is their wanton disregard of all
the lessons of that great struggle. They could not have entertained
any rational hope of making their terrorism more complete or more
fearful than was the Reign of Terror, which utterly failed to maintain
the power of the proletariat. They could not have been unaware of the
fierce resistance the Terror provoked and evoked, the counter-terror
and the reaction--the Ninth Thermidor, the Directory, the _coup d’état_
of the Eighteenth Brumaire, the Empire. They could not have been
ignorant of the fact that the Reign of Terror divided and weakened the
revolutionary forces. That they embarked upon their mad and brutal
adventure in the face of the plain lessons of the French Revolution is
the unpardonable crime of the Bolsheviki.

Despite their copying of the vices of the worst elements in the French
Revolution, the Bolsheviki are most closely connected in their ideals
and their methods with those cruel and adventurous social rebels of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose exploits, familiar to
every Russian, are practically unknown to the rest of the world. Upon
every page of the record of the Bolshevist régime there are reminders
of the revolt of Bogdan Khnielnitski (1644-53) and that of Stenka Razin
(1669-71). These cruel and bloodthirsty men, and others of the same
kind who followed them, appealed only to the savage hatred and envy of
the serfs, encouraged them to wanton destruction and frightful terror.
Quite justly does the Zionist organ, _Dos Yiddishce Volk_,[71] say:

[71] July 11, 1919.

The slogans of Bolshevist practice are, in fact, the old
Russian slogans with which the Volga bands of Pubachev and
Razin ambushed the merchant wagon-trains and the Boyars. It is
very characteristic that the Central Committee of the Communist
Party has seen fit to unveil, on May 1st, at Moscow, a monument
to the Ataman Stenka Razin, the hero of the Volga robber raids
in the seventeenth century. Razin, indeed, is the legitimate
father of Bolshevist practice.

Here we may as well give attention to another appeal which the
Bolsheviki and their champions make to French history. They are fond
of citing the Paris Commune of 1871, and claiming it as the model for
their tactics. This claim, which is thoroughly dishonest, has often
been made by Lenin himself. In the “Theses on Bourgeois and Proletarian
Democracies,” published in _Pravda_, March 8, 1919, Lenin says:
“Precisely at the present moment when the Soviet movement, covering
the whole world, continues the work of the Paris Commune before the
eyes of the whole world, the traitors to Socialism forget concrete
experiences and the concrete lessons of the Paris Commune, repeating
the old bourgeois rubbish about ‘democracy in general.’ The Commune
was not a parliamentary institution.” On many occasions Lenin has made
similar references to the Commune of 1871. The official Bolshevist
press constantly indulges in such statements. The _Krasnaya Gazeta_,
for example, published an article on the subject on December 17, 1919,
parrot-like repeating Lenin’s sophistries.

The simple facts are that (1) the Paris Commune had nothing to do
with Communism or any other social theory. It was an intensely
nationalistic movement, inspired by resentment of a peace which it
regarded as dangerous and humiliating to France. It was a movement for
local independence; (2) it was not a class movement, but embraced the
bourgeoisie as well as the proletariat; (3) it _was_ a “parliamentary
institution,” based upon universal, equal suffrage; (4) the first act
of the revolutionists in 1871 was to appeal to the will of the people,
through popular elections, in which all parties were free and voting
was, as stated, based on equal and universal suffrage; (5) within
two weeks the elections were held, with the result that sixty-five
revolutionists were chosen as against twenty-one elected by the
opposition parties. The opposition included six radical Republicans of
the Gambetta school and fifteen reactionaries of various shades. In
the majority were representatives of every Socialist group and faction;
(6) the Communards never attempted to set up a minority dictatorship,
but remained true to the principles of democracy. This Karl Marx
himself emphasized in his _The Civil War in France_. Bolshevist
“history” is as grotesque as Bolshevist economics! No matter what we
may think of the Commune of 1871, it cannot justly be compared to the
cruel betrayal of Russian democracy by the Bolsheviki. The Communards
were democrats in the fullest sense of the term and their brief rule
had the sanction of a popular majority.

The Bolsheviki and their defenders are never tired of contending that
most of the sufferings of the Russian people during the Bolshevist
régime have been due, not to those responsible for that régime, but to
the “blockade” imposed by the Allies upon Russian trade with foreign
nations. Perhaps no single argument has won so much sympathy from
sentimental and ill-informed people as this. Yet the falsity of the
contention has been demonstrated many times, even by those Russians
opposed to the blockade. A brief summary of the salient facts will show
that this claim has been used as a peg upon which to hang a propaganda
remarkable for its insincerity and its trickery.

The blockade was declared in November, 1917, shortly after the
Bolsheviki seized the machinery of government. It was already quite
apparent that they would make a separate peace with Germany, and that
Germany would be the dictator of the peace. There was great danger
that supplies furnished to Russia under these conditions would be
used by the Germans. As a policy, therefore, the blockade was dictated
by military considerations of the highest importance and was directed
against the Central Empires, and not primarily against the Bolsheviki.
It was, of course, inevitable that it would inflict hardship upon
Russia, our former ally, and not merely upon the Bolsheviki. So long as
the Central Empires were in a position to carry on the fight, however,
and especially after the Brest-Litovsk Peace gave Germany such a
command over the life of Russia, the maintenance of the blockade seemed
to be of the highest importance from a military point of view. That
it entailed hardship and suffering upon people who were our friends
was one of the numerous tragedies of the war, not more terrible,
perhaps--except as regards the number of people affected--than many of
the measures taken in those parts of France occupied by the enemy or in
the fighting-zone.

After the armistice and the cessation of actual fighting the question
at once took on a new aspect. Many persons--the present writer among
the number--believed and urged that the blockade should then be lifted
entirely. The issue was blurred, however, by the fact that while this
would certainly give aid to the Bolsheviki there was no assurance that
it would in any degree benefit the people in Russia who were opposed
to them. The discrimination in favor of the Bolsheviki practised in
the distribution of food and everything else was responsible for
this. It must be borne in mind that the blockade did not cut off
from Russia any important source of food-supply. Russia had never
depended upon other nations for staple foods. On the contrary, she
was a food-exporting country. She practically fed the greater part of
western Europe. Cutting off her _imports_ did not lessen the grain she
had; cutting off her _exports_ certainly had the effect of _increasing_
the stores available for home consumption. All this is as plain as the
proverbial pikestaff.

The starvation of the Russian people was not caused by the blockade,
which did not lessen the amount of staple foods available, but, on the
contrary, increased it. The real causes were these: the breakdown of
the transportation system, which made it impossible to transport the
grain to the great centers of population; the stupid policy of the
Bolsheviki toward the peasants and the warfare consequent thereon;
the demoralization of industry and the resulting inability to give
the peasants manufactured goods in exchange for their grain. It may
be objected, in reply to this statement, that but for the blockade
it would have been possible to import railway equipment, industrial
machinery, and so on, and that therefore the blockade was an indirect
cause of food shortage. The fallacy in this argument is transparent: as
to the industrial machinery, Soviet Russia had, and according to Rykov
still has, much more than could be used. As regards large importations
of manufactured goods and railway equipment, what would have been
exported in exchange for such imports? The available stocks of raw
materials, especially flax and hides, were exceedingly small and would
have exchanged for very little. We have the authority of Rykov for
this statement also.

What, then, was there available for export? The answer is--_food
grains_! In almost every statement issued by the Bolsheviki in their
propaganda against the blockade wheat figured as the most important
available exportable commodity. The question arises, therefore, _how
could the export of wheat from Russia help to feed her starving
people_? If there was wheat for export, hunger was surely an absurdity!
Victor Kopp, representative of the Soviet Government in Berlin, in a
special interview published in the London _Daily Chronicle_, February
28, 1920, made this quite clear, pointing out that the hope that Russia
would be able to send food grains to central Europe in exchange for
manufactured goods was entirely unfounded, because Russia sorely needed
all her foodstuffs of every kind. Krassin, head of the department of
Trade and Commerce in the Soviet Government, told Mr. Copping--that
most useful of phonographs!--that the shattered condition of
transportation “leaves us temporarily unable to get adequate supplies
of food for our own cities, and puts entirely out of the question any
possibility, at present, of assembling goods at our ports for sending
abroad.”[72] As a matter of fact, the raising of the blockade, if, and
in so far as, it led to an export of wheat and other food grains in
return for manufactured goods, _would have increased the hunger and
underfeeding of the Russian people_.

[72] _Daily Chronicle_, London, February 26, 1920.

The Bolsheviki knew this quite well and did not want the blockade
raised. They realized that the propaganda in other countries against
the blockade was an enormous asset to them, whereas removal of the
blockade would reveal their weakness. Support is given to this
contention by the following passage from Rykov’s report in January of
this year:

It is the greatest fallacy to imagine that the lifting of
the blockade or conclusion of peace is able in any degree to
solve our raw-material crisis. _On the contrary, the lifting
of the blockade and conclusion of peace, if such should take
place, will mean an increased demand for raw materials_, as
these are the only articles which Russia can furnish to Europe
and exchange for European commodities. The supplies of flax
on hand are sufficient for a period of from eight months to a
year. _But we shall not be able to export large quantities of
flax abroad_, and the catastrophic decline in flax production
as compared with 1919 raises the question whether the flax
industry shall not experience in 1920 a flax shortage similar
to the one experienced by the textile industry in cotton.

In the spring of 1919 Mr. Alexander Berkenheim, one of the managers
of the “Centrosoyuz,” with other well-known Russian co-operators,
represented to the British Government that the blockade of Russia was
inflicting hardship and famine only, or at least mainly, upon the
innocent civil population. They argued that if the blockade were lifted
the Bolsheviki would see to the feeding of the general population.
Berkenheim and his friends applied for permission for their association
to send a steamer to Odessa laden with foodstuffs, medicines, and
other supplies, to be distributed exclusively among children and sick
and convalescing civilians. Backed by influential British supporters,
Berkenheim and his friends gave guaranties that not a single pound of
such supplies would reach the Red Army. All was to be distributed by
the co-operatives without any interference by the authorities. The
Bolshevist Government gave a similar guaranty, stated in very definite
and unequivocal terms. Accordingly, the British Government consented
to allow the steamer to sail, and in June, 1919, the steamer, with a
cargo of tea, coffee, cocoa, and rice, consigned to the “Centrosoyuz,”
arrived at Odessa. But no sooner had the steamer entered the port than
the whole cargo was requisitioned by the Soviet authorities and handed
over to the organization supplying the Red Army.

This treachery was the principal cause of the continuance of the
blockade. That it was intended to have precisely that effect is not
improbable. On January 16, 1920, the Supreme Council of the League
of Nations, at its first meeting, upon the proposal of the British
Government, decided to so greatly modify the blockade as to amount
to its practical abandonment. Trade was to be opened up with Russia
through the co-operatives, it was announced. The co-operatives were to
act as importing and exporting agencies, receiving clothing, machinery,
medicines, railroad equipment, and so on, and exporting the “surplus”
grain, flax, hides, and so on, in return.

Immediately after that arrangement was announced the Bolsheviki adopted
an entirely new attitude. They began to raise hitherto unheard-of
objections. They could not permit trade with the co-operatives on
the conditions laid down; the co-operatives were not independent
organizations, but a part of the Soviet state machinery; trade must
accompany recognition of the Soviet Government, and so on. Thus the
“diplomatic” arguments went. In Russia itself the leaders took the
position expressed by Rykov in the speech already quoted.

To sum up: the blockade was a natural military measure of precaution,
rendered necessary by the actions of the Bolsheviki; it was directed
primarily against the Germans; it was not at any time a primary
cause of the food shortage in Russia. When efforts were made to
ameliorate the condition of the civil population by raising the
blockade the Bolsheviki treacherously defeated such efforts. The
prolonged continuation of the blockade was mainly due to the policy of
obstruction pursued by the Bolsheviki. No large volume of trade could
have been had with Russia at any time during the Bolshevist régime.
The Bolsheviki themselves did not want the blockade removed, and
finally confessed that such removal would not help them. Certainly, the
Allies and the United States made many mistakes in connection with the
blockade; but, when that has been fully admitted, and when all that can
fairly be said against that policy has been said, it remains the fact
that the Bolsheviki were responsible for creating the conditions which
made the blockade necessary and inevitable, and that their treachery
forced its continuation long after the Allies had shown themselves
ready and even anxious to abandon it. At every step of their fatal
progress in the devastation and spoliation of Russia the treachery of
the Bolsheviki, their entire lack of honor and good faith, appear.

Herein lies the real reason why no civilized government can with safety
to its own institutions--to say nothing of regard for its own dignity
and honor--enter into any covenant with the Bolshevist Government of
Russia or hold official relations with it. At the root of Bolshevism
lies a negation of everything of fundamental importance to the friendly
and co-operative relations of governments and peoples. When the leaders
of a government that is set up and maintained by brute force, and
does not, therefore, have behind it the sanction of the will of its
citizens, being subject to no control other than its own ambitions,
declare that they will sign agreements with foreign nations without
feeling in the slightest degree obligated by such agreements, they
outlaw themselves and their government.

Not only have the Bolsheviki boasted that this was their attitude, but
they have gone farther. Their responsible leaders and spokesmen--Lenin,
Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, and others--have openly declared
that they are determined to use any and all means to bring about
revolts in all other civilized countries, to upset their governments
and institute Bolshevist rule. They have declared that only by such a
universal spread of its rule can Bolshevism be maintained in Russia.
“Soviet Russia by its very existence is a ferment and a propagator of
the inevitable world revolution,” wrote Radek in Maximilian Harden’s
_Zukunft_, in February, 1920. Referring to the Spartacist uprisings in
Germany, he said: “You are afraid of Bolshevist propaganda penetrating
into Germany with other goods. You recall an experiment already
carried out by Germany. _Yes, I glory in the results of our work._”
“One does not demand a patent for immortality from the man to whom
one sells a suit of underclothing ... and our only concern is trade,”
said Radek in the same article. When Radek wrote that he knew that he
was lying. He knew that, far from being their “only concern,” trade
was the least of the concerns of the Bolsheviki. Upon this point the
evidence leaves no room for doubt. In _The Program of the Communist
Party_, Chapter XIX, Bucharin says, “The program of the Communist
Party is not alone a program of liberating the proletariat of one
country; it is the program of liberating the proletariat of the world.”
Lenin wrote in _The Chief Tasks of Our Times_: “Only a madman can
imagine that the task of overthrowing international imperialism can
be fulfilled by Russians alone. While in the west the revolution is
maturing and is making appreciable progress, the task before us is as
follows: We who in spite of our weakness are in the forefront must do
all in our power to retain the occupied positions.... We must strain
every nerve in order to remain in power as long as possible, _so as
to give time for a development of the western revolution_, which is
growing much more slowly than we expected and wished.” Zinoviev wrote
in _Pravda_, November 7, 1919, that “in a year, in two years, the
Communist International will rule the world.” Kalinin, president of
the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Power, in
his New-Year’s greeting for 1920, published in the _Krasnaya Gazeta_,
January 1, 1920, declared that, “Western European brothers in the
coming year should overthrow the rule of their capitalists and should
join with the Russian proletariat and establish the single authority of
the Soviets through the entire world under the protection of the Third
International.” Many other statements of a similar character could
be quoted to show that the Russian Bolsheviki’s chief concern is not
trade, but world-wide revolt on Bolshevist lines.

That the Bolsheviki would use the privileges and immunities accorded
to diplomatic representatives to foster Bolshevist agitation and
revolt is made manifest by their utterances and their performances
alike. “We have no desire to interfere in the internal affairs of any
country,” said Kopp, in the interview already quoted, and the Soviet
Government has repeatedly stated its willingness to give assurances
of non-interference with the political or economic system of other
countries. But of what use are assurances from men who boast that they
are willing to sign agreements without the slightest intention of
being bound by them? Take, for example, Trotsky’s statement, published
at Petrograd, in February, 1918: “If, in awaiting the imminent
proletarian flood in Europe, Russia should be compelled to conclude
peace with the present-day governments of the Central Powers, it would
be a provisional, temporary, and transitory peace, with the revision
of which the European Revolution will have to concern itself in the
first instance. _Our whole policy is built upon the expectation of
this revolution._” Precisely the same attitude toward the Allies was
more bluntly expressed by Zinoviev on February 2, 1919, regarding the
proposed Prinkipo Conference: “We are willing to sign an unfavorable
peace with the Allies.... _It would only mean that we should put no
trust whatever in the bit of paper we should sign._ We should use the
breathing-space so obtained in order to gather our strength in order
that the mere continued existence of our government would keep up the
world-wide propaganda which Soviet Russia has been carrying on for more
than a year.” Of the Third International, so closely allied with the
Soviet Government, Zinoviev is reported by Mr. Lincoln Eyre as saying:
“Our propaganda system is as strong and as far-reaching as ever. The
Third International is primarily an instrument of revolution. This work
will be continued, no matter what happens, legally or illegally. The
Soviet Government may pledge itself to refrain from propaganda abroad,
but the Third International, never.”[73]

[73] New York _World_, February 26, 1920.

Finally, there is the speech of Lenin before the Council of the
People’s Commissaries during the negotiations upon the ill-starred
Prinkipo Conference proposal, in which he said:

The successful development of the Bolshevist doctrine
throughout the world can only be effected by means of periods
of rest during which we may recuperate and gather new strength
for further exertions. I have never hesitated to come to
terms with bourgeois governments, when by so doing I thought I
could weaken the bourgeoisie. It is sound strategy in war to
postpone operations until the moral disintegration of the enemy
renders the delivery of a mortal blow possible. This was the
policy we adopted toward the German Empire, and it has proved
successful. _The time has now come for us to conclude a second
Brest-Litovsk_, this time with the Entente. We must make peace
not only with the Entente, but also with Poland, Lithuania, and
the Ukraine, and all the other forces which are opposing us in
Russia. _We must be prepared to make every concession, promise,
and sacrifice in order to entice our foes into the conclusion
of this peace._ We shall know that we have but concluded a
truce permitting us to complete our preparations for a decisive
onslaught which will assure our triumph.

In view of these utterances, and scores of others like them, of
what value are the “assurances of non-interference”--or any other
assurances--offered by Chicherine, Lenin, and the rest? But we are not
confined to mere utterances: there are deeds aplenty which fully bear
out the inferences we have from the words of the Bolshevist leaders.
In a London court, before Mr. Justice Neville, it was brought out
that the Bolshevist envoy, Litvinov, had been guilty of using his
position to promote revolutionary agitation. Not only had Litvinov
committed a breach of agreement, said Mr. Justice Neville, but he
had been guilty of a breach of public law. A circular letter to the
British trades-unions was read by the justice, containing these words:
“_Hence it is that the Russian revolutionaries are summoning the
proletarians of all countries to a revolutionary fight against their
government._” Even worse was the case of the Bolshevist ambassador,
Joffe, who was expelled from Berlin for using his diplomatic position
to wage a propaganda for the overthrow of the German Government, and
this notwithstanding the fact that the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in its
second article specifically forbade “any agitation against the state
and military institutions of Germany.”

In an official note to the German Foreign Office, published in
_Izvestia_, December 26, 1918, Chicherine boasted that millions of
rubles had been sent to Berlin for the purpose of revolutionary
propaganda. The duplicity revealed by this note was quite
characteristic of the Bolshevist régime and in keeping with the record
of Chicherine himself in his relations with the British Government
during his stay in London, where he acted as one of the representatives
of the Russians in London who were seeking repatriation. _Izvestia_,
on January 1, 1919, contained an article by Joffe on “Revolutionary
Methods,” in which he said: “Having accepted this forcibly imposed
treaty [Brest-Litovsk], revolutionary Russia of course had to accept
its second article, which forbade ‘any agitation against the state and
military institutions of Germany.’ But both the Russian Government as a
whole and its accredited representative in Berlin _never concealed the
fact that they were not observing this article and did not intend to do
so_.” As a matter of fact, the agitation against the German Government
by the Bolsheviki continued even after the so-called supplementary
treaties of Brest-Litovsk, dated August 27, 1918, which, as pointed out
by the United States Department of State, were not signed under duress,
as was the original treaty, but were actively sought for and gladly
signed by the Bolsheviki.

In view of these indisputable facts, is there any honest and worthy
reason for suspending judgment upon the character of the Soviet
Government? Surely it must be plainly evident to every candid and
dispassionate mind that Bolshevism is practically a negation of
every principle of honor and good faith essential to friendly and
co-operative relations among governments in modern civilization. The
Bolsheviki have outlawed themselves and placed themselves outside the
pale of the community of nations.

The merits of Sovietism as a method of government do not here and
now concern us. But we are entitled to demand that those who urge us
to adopt it furnish some evidence of its superiority in practice. Up
to the present time, no such evidence has been offered by those who
advocate the change; on the other hand, all the available evidence
tends to show that Soviet government, far from being superior to our
own, is markedly inferior to it. We are entitled, surely, to call
attention to the fact that, so far as it has been tried in Russia,
Sovietism has resulted in an enormous increase in bureaucracy; that it
has not done away with corruption and favoritism in government; that
it has shown itself to be capable of every abuse of which other forms
of government, whether despotic, oligarchic, or democratic, have been
capable. It has not given Russia a government one whit more humane or
just, one whit less oppressive or corrupt than czarism. It seems to be
inherently bureaucratic and therefore inefficient. Be that how it may,
it is impossible to deny that it has failed and failed utterly. Even
the Bolsheviki, whose sole excuse for their assault upon the rapidly
evolving democracy of Russia was their faith in the superiority of
Sovietism over parliamentary government, have found it necessary to
abandon it, not only in government, but in industry and in military
organization.

In industry Sovietism, so far as it has been tried in Russia, has
shown itself to be markedly inferior to the methods of industrial
organization common to the great industrial nations, and the so-called
Soviet Government itself, which is in reality an oligarchy, has had
to abandon it and to revert to the essential principles and methods
of capitalist industry. This is not the charge of a hostile critic:
it is the confession of Lenin, of Trotsky, of Krassin, of Rykov, and
practically every acknowledged Bolshevist authority. We do not say that
the Soviet idea contains nothing of good; we do not deny that, under
a democratic government, Soviets might have aided, and may yet aid,
to democratize Russian industrial life. What we do say is that the
Bolsheviki have failed to make them of the slightest service to the
Russian people; that Bolshevism has completely failed to organize the
industrial life of Russia, either on Soviet lines or any other, and has
had to revert to capitalism and to call upon the capitalists of other
lands to come and rescue them from utter destruction. After ruthlessly
exterminating their own capitalists, they have been compelled to offer
to give foreign capitalists, in the shape of vast economic concessions,
a mortgage upon the great heritage of future generations of the Russian
people and the right to exploit their toil.

So, too, with the military organization of the country: Starting out
with Soviet management in the army, the present rulers of Russia soon
discovered that the system would not work. As early as January, 1918,
Krylenko, Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the Bolsheviki,
reported to the Central Executive Committee that the soldiers’
committees were “the only remnant of the army.” In May, 1919, Trotsky
was preaching the necessity of “respect for military science” and of “a
genuine army, properly organized and firmly ruled by a single hand.”
Conscription was introduced, not by law enacted by responsible elected
representatives of the people, but by decree. It was enforced with
a brutality and savagery unknown to this age in any other country.
Just as in industry the “bourgeois specialists” were brought back
and compelled to work under espionage and duress, so the officers of
the old imperial army were brought back and held to their tasks by
terror, their wives and children and other relatives being held as
hostages for their conduct. _Izvestia_ published, September 18, 1918,
Trotsky’s famous Order No. 903, which read: “Seeing the increasing
number of deserters, especially among the commanders, orders are
issued to _arrest as hostages_ all the members of the family one can
lay hands on: father, mother, brother, sister, wife, and children.”
Another order issued by Trotsky in the summer of 1919 said, “In case an
officer goes over to the enemy, _his family should be made to feel the
consequences of his betrayal_.”

_Pravda_[74] published an article giving an account of the formation of
a Red cavalry regiment. From that article we learn that every officer
mobilized in the Red Army had to sign the following statement:

[74] No. 11, 1919.

I have received due notice that in the event of my being guilty
of treason or betrayal in regard to the Soviet Government,
my nearest relatives [names given] residing at [full address
given] will be responsible for me.

What this meant is known from the many news items in the Bolshevist
press relating to the arrest, imprisonment, and even shooting of
the relatives of deserters. To cite only one example: the _Krasnaya
Gazeta_, November 4, 1919, published a “preliminary list” of nine
deserting Red Army officers whose relatives--including mothers,
fathers, sisters, brothers, and wives--had been arrested. _Izvestia_
printed a list of deserters’ relatives condemned to be shot, _including
children fourteen and sixteen years old_.

At the Joint Conference on National Economy in Moscow, January,
1920, Lenin summed up the experience of the Bolsheviki with Soviet
direction of the army, saying, “In the organization of the army we
have passed from the principle of commanding by committee to the
direct command of the chiefs. We must do the same in the organization
of government and industry.” And again, “The experience of our army
shows us that primitive organization based on the collectivist
principle becomes transformed into an administration based upon the
principle of individual power.” In the _Program of the Communists_ we
read that “The demand that the military command should be elective
... has no significance with reference to the Red Army, composed of
class-conscious workmen and peasants.” In a pamphlet issued by the
All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the latter part of 1918 we
read that “Regimental Committees, acting as administrative organs,
cannot exist in the Soviet Army.” These quotations amply prove that
Sovietism in the army was found undesirable and unworkable by the
Bolsheviki themselves and by them abandoned.

We remember the glowing promises with which the first Red Army was
launched: volunteers considering it an honor to be permitted to fight
for the Communist Utopia; the “collective self-discipline”; the
direction of the whole military organization by soldiers’ committees,
and all the rest of the wild vision. We compare it with the brutal
reality, and the contrast between the hope and the reality is the
measure of the ghastly failure of Bolshevism. The military system of
the Bolsheviki is infinitely more brutal than the old Prussian system
was. The Red Army is an army of slaves driven by terrorized slaves.
Sovietism proved a fool’s fantasy. The old military discipline came
back harsher than ever; the death penalty was restored; conscription
and mobilization at the point of the bayonet were carried out with a
ferocity never equaled in any modern nation, not even in Russia under
Czar Nicholas II. Was there ever a more complete failure?

The mass of evidence we have cited from Bolshevist authorities warrants
the judgment that Sovietism, as exemplified during the Bolshevist
régime, in every department of the national life, is at best an utterly
impracticable Utopian scheme. Certainly every fair-minded person of
normal intelligence must agree that there is nothing in the record of
the experiment--a record, be it remembered, made by the Bolsheviki
themselves--to rouse enthusiastic hopes or to justify any civilized
nation in throwing aside the existing machinery of government and
industrial organization and immediately substituting Sovietism therefor.

As for Bolshevism, in contradistinction from Sovietism, there can be
no hesitation in reaching a verdict upon the evidence supplied by its
own accredited spokesmen and official records. We have not massed the
isolated crimes of individuals and mobs and presented the result as a
picture of Russian life. That would be as unjust as to list all the
accounts of race riots, lynchings, and murders in this country and
offering the list as a fair picture of American life. Ignoring these
things completely, we have taken the laws and decrees of Soviet Russia;
its characteristic institutions; the things done by its government; the
writings and speeches of its statesmen and recognized interpreters;
the cold figures of its own reports of industry and agriculture. The
result is a picture of Bolshevism, self-drawn, more ugly and repellent
than the most malicious imagination could have drawn.

On the other side there is no single worthy creative achievement to
be recorded. There are almost innumerable “decrees,” some of them
attractive enough, but there are no actual achievements of merit to be
credited to the Bolsheviki. Even in the matter of education, concerning
which we have heard so much, there is not a scintilla of evidence that
will bear examination which tends to show that they have actually
accomplished anything which Russia will gratefully remember or cherish
in the days that are to come. The much-vaunted “Proletcult” of Soviet
Russia is in practice little more than a means of providing jobs for
Communists. The Bolshevist publicist, Mizkevich, made this charge in
_Izvestia_, March 22, 1919. “The Proletcult is using up our not very
numerous forces, and spending public money, which it gets from ... the
Commissariat for Public Instruction, on the same work that is done by
the Public Instruction departments ... opposes its own work for the
creation of proletarian culture to the same work of the agents of the
proletarian authority, and thus creates confusion in the minds of the
proletarian mass.”

The Bolsheviki have published decrees and articles on education
with great freedom, but they have done little else except harm.
They have weakened the great universities and rudely interrupted
the development of the great movement to improve and extend popular
education initiated shortly before the Revolution by Count Ignatiev,
the best friend of popular education that ever held office in Russia,
compared to whom Lunacharsky is a cretin. They have imposed upon the
universities and schools the bureaucratic rule of men most of whom know
nothing of university requirements, are at best poorly educated and
sometimes even illiterate.

Promising peace and freedom from militarism, they betrayed their
Allies and played the game of their foes; they brought new wars upon
the already war-weary nation and imposed upon it a militarism more
brutal than the old. Promising freedom, they have developed a tyranny
more brutal and oppressive than that of the Romanovs. Promising humane
and just government, they instituted the _Chresvychaikas_ and a vast,
corrupt bureaucracy. Promising to so organize production that there
should be plenty for all and poverty for none, they ruined industrial
production, decreased agricultural production to a perilously low level
and so that famine reigned in a land of plentiful resources, human
and material. Promising to make the workers masters of the machines,
free citizens in a great industrial democracy, they have destroyed the
machines, forced the workers to take the places of beasts of burden,
and made them bond-slaves.

_The evidence is in: let the jury render its verdict._

FINIS

DOCUMENTS

DECREE REGARDING GRAIN CONTROL

The disastrous undermining of the country’s food-supply, the serious
heritage of the four years’ war, continues to extend more and more, and
to be more and more acute. While the consuming provincial governments
are starving, in the producing governments there are at the present
moment, as before, large reserves of grain of the harvests of 1916 and
1917 not yet even threshed. This grain is in the hands of tight-fisted
village dealers and profiteers, of the village bourgeoisie. Well fed
and well provided for, having accumulated enormous sums of money
obtained during the years of war, the village bourgeoisie remains
stubbornly deaf and indifferent to the wailings of starving workmen and
peasant poverty, and does not bring the grain to the collecting-points.
The grain is held with the hope of compelling the government to raise
repeatedly the prices of grain, at the same time that the holders sell
their grain at home at fabulous prices to grain speculators.

An end must be put to this obstinacy of the greedy village
grain-profiteers. The food experience of former years showed that
the breaking of fixed prices and the denial of grain monopoly, while
lessening the possibility of feasting for our group of capitalists,
would make bread completely inaccessible to our many millions of
workmen and would subject them to inevitable death from starvation.

The answer to the violence of grain-owners toward the starving poor
must be violence toward the bourgeoisie.

Not a pood should remain in the hands of those holding the grain,
except the quantity needed for sowing the fields and provisioning their
families until the new harvest.

This policy must be put into force at once, especially since the German
occupation of the Ukraine compels us to get along with grain resources
which will hardly suffice for sowing and curtailed use.

Having considered the situation thus created, and taking into account
that only with the most rigid calculation and equal distribution of all
grain reserves can Russia pass through the food crisis, the Central
Executive Committee of All Russia has decreed:

1. Confirming the fixity of the grain monopoly and fixed prices, and
also the necessity of a merciless struggle with grain speculators, to
compel each grain-owner to declare the surplus above what is needed to
sow the fields and for personal use, according to established normal
quantities, until the new harvest, and to surrender the same within
a week after the publication of this decision in each village. The
order of these declarations is to be determined by the People’s Food
Commissioner through the local food organizations.

2. To call upon workmen and poor peasants to unite at once for a
merciless struggle with grain-hoarders.

3. To declare all those who have a surplus of grain and who do not
bring it to the collecting-points, and likewise those who waste grain
reserves on illicit distillation of alcohol and do not bring them to
the collecting-point, enemies of the people; to turn them over to the
Revolutionary Tribunal, imprison them for not less than ten years,
confiscate their entire property, and drive them out forever from
the communes; while the distillers are, besides, to be condemned to
compulsory communal work.

In case an excess of grain which was not declared for surrender, in
compliance with Article I, is found in the possession of any one
the grain is to be taken away from him without pay, while the sum,
according to fixed prices, due for the undeclared surpluses is to be
paid, one-half to the person who points out the concealed surpluses,
after they have been placed at the collecting-points, and the other
half to the village commune. Declarations concerning the concealed
surpluses are made by the local food organizations.

Further, taking into consideration that the struggle with the food
crisis demands the application of quick and decisive measures, that
the more fruitful realization of these measures demands in its turn
the centralization of all orders dealing with the food question in one
organization, and that this organization appears to be the People’s
Food Commissioner, the Central Executive Committee of All Russia hereby
orders, for the more successful struggle with the food crisis, that the
People’s Food Commissioner be given the following powers:

1. To publish obligatory regulations regarding the food situation,
exceeding the usual limits of the People’s Food Commissioner’s
competence.

2. To abrogate the orders of local food bodies and other organizations
contravening the plans and actions of the People’s Commissioner.

3. To demand from institutions and organizations of all departments the
carrying out of the regulations of the People’s Food Commissioner in
connection with the food situation without evasions and at once.

4. To use the armed forces in case resistance is shown to the removal
of food grains or other food products.

5. To dissolve or reorganize the food agencies in places where they
might resist the orders of the People’s Commissioner.

6. To discharge, transfer, turn over to the Revolutionary Tribunal, or
subject to arrest officials and employees of all departments and public
organizations in case of interference with the orders of the People’s
Commissioner.

7. To transfer the present powers, in addition to the right to subject
to arrest, above, to other persons and institutions in various places,
with the approval of the Council of the People’s Commissioners.

8. All understandings of the People’s Commissioner, related in
character to the Department of Ways of Communication and the
Supreme Council of National Economy, are to be carried through upon
consultation with the corresponding departments.

9. The regulations and orders of the People’s Commissioner, issued in
accordance with the present powers, are verified by his college, which
has the right, without suspending their operation, of referring them to
the Council of Public Commissioners.

10. The present decree becomes effective from the date of its signature
and is to be put into operation by telegraph.

_Published May 14, 1918._

REGULATION CONCERNING THE ADMINISTRATION OF NATIONAL UNDERTAKINGS

_Part I_

1. The Central Administration of Nationalized Undertakings, of whatever
branch of industry, assigns for each large nationalized undertaking
technical and administrative directors, in whose hands are placed the
actual administration and direction of the entire activity of the
undertaking. They are responsible to the Central Administration and the
Commissioner appointed by it.

2. The technical director appoints technical employees and gives all
orders regarding the technical administration of the undertaking. The
factory committee may, however, complain regarding these appointments
and orders to the Commissioner of the Central Administration, and
then to the Central Administration itself; but only the Commissioner
and Central Administration may stop the appointments and order of the
technical director.

3. In connection with the Administrative Director there is an Economic
Administrative Council, consisting of delegates from laborers,
employees, and engineers of the undertaking. The Council examines the
estimates of the undertaking, the plan of its works, the rules of
internal distribution, complaints, the material and moral conditions
of the work and life of the workmen and employees, and likewise all
questions regarding the progress of the undertaking.

4. On questions of a technical character relating to the enterprise
the Council has only a consultative voice, but on other questions a
decisive voice, on condition, however, that the Administrative Director
appointed by the Central Administration has the right to appeal
from the orders of the Council to the Commissioner of the Central
Administration.

5. The duty of acting upon decisions of the Economic Administrative
Council belongs to the Administrative Director.

6. The Council of the enterprise has the right to make representation
to the Central Administration regarding a change of the directors of
the enterprise, and to present its own candidates.

7. Depending on the size and importance of the enterprise, the Central
Administration may appoint several technical and administrative
directors.

8. The composition of the Economic Administrative Council of the
enterprise consists of (_a_) a representative of the workmen of the
undertaking; (_b_) a representative of the other employees; (_c_) a
representative of the highest technical and commercial personnel;
(_d_) the directors of the undertaking, appointed by the Central
Administration; (_e_) representatives of the local or regional council
of professional unions, of the people’s economic council, of the
council of workmen’s deputies, and to the professional council of
that branch of industry to which the given enterprise belongs; (_f_)
a representative of the workmen’s co-operative council; and (_g_) a
representative of the Soviet of peasants’ deputies of the corresponding
region.

9. In the composition of the Economic Administrative Council of
the enterprise, representatives of workmen and other employees, as
mentioned in points (_a_) and (_b_) of Article VIII, may furnish only
half of the number of members.

10. The workmen’s control of nationalized undertakings is realized by
leaving all declarations and orders of the factory committee, or of the
controlling commission, to the judgment and decision of the Economic
Administrative Council of the enterprise.

11. The workmen, employees, and highest technical and commercial
personnel of nationalized undertakings are in duty bound before the
Russian Soviet Republic to observe industrial discipline and to
carry out conscientiously and accurately the work assigned to them.
To the Economic Administrative Council are given judicial rights,
including that of dismissal without notice for longer or shorter
periods, together with the declaration of a boycott for non-proletariat
recognition of their rights and duties.

12. In the case of those industrial branches for which Central
Administrations have not yet been formed, all their rights are vested
in provincial councils of the national economy, and in corresponding
industrial sections of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.

13. The estimates and plan of work of a nationalized undertaking must
be presented by its Economic Administrative Council to the Central
Administration of a given industrial branch at least as often as once
in three months, through the provincial organizations, where such have
been established.

14. The management of nationalized undertakings, where such management
has heretofore been organized on other principles because of the
absence of a general plan and general orders for the whole of Russia,
must now be reorganized, in accordance with the present regulation,
within the next three months (_i.e._, by the end of May, new style).

15. For the consideration of the declarations of the Economic
Administrative Council concerning the activity of the directors of
the undertaking at the Central Administration of a given branch of
industry, a special section is established, composed one-third of
representatives of general governmental, political, and economic
institutions of the proletariat, one-third of representatives of
workmen and other employees of the given industrial branch, and
one-third of representatives of the directing, technical, and
commercial personnel and its professional organizations.

16. The present order must be posted on the premises of each
nationalized undertaking.

_Note._--Small nationalized enterprises are managed on similar
principles, with the proviso that the duties of technical and
administrative directors may be combined in one person, and
the numerical strength of the Economic Administrative Council
may be cut down by the omission of representatives of one or
another institution or organization.

_Part II_

17. A Central Administration [Principal Committee] for each
nationalized branch of industry is to be established in connection with
the Supreme Council of the National Economy, to be composed one-third
of representatives of workmen and employees of a given industrial
branch; one-third of representatives of the general proletariat,
general governmental, political, and economic organizations and
institutions (Supreme Council of National Economy, the People’s
Commissioners, All-Russian Council of Professional Unions, All-Russian
Council of Workmen’s Co-operative Unions, Central Executive
Committee of the Councils of Workmen’s Delegates) and one-third of
representatives of scientific bodies, of the supreme technical and
commercial personnel, and of democratic organizations of All Russia
(Council of the Congresses of All Russia, co-operative unions of
consumers, councils of peasants’ deputies).

18. The Central Administration selects its bureau, for which all
orders of the Central Administration are obligatory, which conducts
the current work and carries into effect the general plans for the
undertaking.

19. The Central Administration organizes provincial and local
administrations of a given industrial branch, on principles similar to
those on which its own organization is based.

20. The rights and duties of each Central Administration are indicated
in the order concerning the establishment of each of them, but in
each case each Central Administration unites, in its own hands (_a_)
the management of the enterprises of a given industrial branch, (_b_)
their financing, (_c_) their technical unification or reconstruction,
(_d_) standardization of the working conditions of the given industrial
branch.

21. All orders of the Supreme Council of National Economy are
obligatory for each Central Administration; the Central Administration
comes in contact with the Supreme Council in the person of the bureau
of productive organization of the Supreme Council of National Economy
through the corresponding productive sections.

22. When the Central Administration for any industrial branch which
has not yet been nationalized is organized, it has the right to
sequestrate the enterprises of the given branch, and equally, without
sequestration, to prevent its managers completely or in part from
engaging in its administration, appoint commissioners, give orders,
which are obligatory, to the owners of non-nationalized enterprises,
and incur expenses on account of these enterprises for measures which
the Central Administration may consider necessary; and likewise to
combine into a technical whole separate enterprises or parts of the
same, to transfer from some enterprises to others fuel and customers’
orders, and establish prices upon articles of production and commerce.

23. The Central Administration controls imports and exports of
corresponding goods for a period which it determines, for which purpose
it forms a part of the general governmental organizations of external
commerce.

24. The Central Administration has the right to concentrate, in
its hands and in institutions established by it, both the entire
preparation of articles necessary for a given branch of industry (raw
material, machinery, etc.) and the disposal to enterprises subject to
it of all products and acceptances of orders for them.

_Part III_

25. Upon the introduction of nationalization into any industrial
branch, or into any individual enterprise, the corresponding Central
Administration (or the temporary Central Administration appointed
with its rights) takes under its management the nationalized
enterprises, each separately, and preserves the large ones as separate
administrative units, annexing to them the smaller ones.

26. Until the nationalized enterprises have been taken over by the
Central Administration (or principal commissioner) all former managers
or directorates must continue their work in its entirety in the usual
manner, and under the supervision of the corresponding commissioner
(if one has been appointed), taking all measures necessary for the
preservation of the national property and for the continuous course of
operations.

27. The Central Administration and its organs establish new managements
and technical administrative directorates of enterprises.

28. Technical administrative directorates of nationalized enterprises
are organized according to Part I of this Regulation.

29. The management of a large undertaking, treated as a separate
administrative unit, is organized with a view to securing, in as
large a measure as possible, the utilization of the technical and
commercial experience accumulated by the undertaking; for which purpose
there are included in the composition of the new management not only
representatives of the laborers and employees of the enterprise (to
the number of one-third of the general numerical strength of the
management) and of the Central Administration itself (to the number
of one-third or less, as the Central Administration shall see fit),
but also, as far as possible, members of former managements, excepting
persons specially removed by the Central Administration and, upon their
refusal, representatives of any special competent organizations, even
if they are not proletariat (to a number not exceeding one-third of
the general membership of the management).

30. When nationalization is introduced, whether of the entire branch of
the industry or of separate enterprises, the Central Administrations
are permitted, in order to facilitate the change, to pay to the highest
technical and commercial personnel their present salaries, and even,
in case of refusal on their part to work and the impossibility of
filling their places with other persons, to introduce for their benefit
obligatory work and to bring suit against them.

31. The former management of each nationalized undertaking must
prepare a report for the last year of operation and an inventory
of the undertaking, in accordance with which inventory the new
management verifies the properties taken over. The actual taking over
of the enterprise is done by the new management immediately upon its
confirmation by the principal committee, without waiting for the
presentation of the inventory and report.

32. Upon receipt in their locality of notice of the nationalization
of some enterprise, and until the organization of the management and
its administration by the Central Administration (or the principal
commissioner, or institution having the rights of the principal
commissioner) the workmen and employees of the given enterprise, and,
if possible, also the Council of Workmen’s Deputies, the Council of
National Economy, and Council of Professional Unions, select temporary
commissioners, under whose supervision and observation (and, if
necessary, under whose management) the activity of the undertaking
continues. The workmen and employees of the given enterprise, and
the regional councils of national economy, of professional unions,
and of workmen’s delegates have the right also to organize temporary
managements and directorates of nationalized enterprises until the
same are completely established by the Central Administration.

33. If the initiative for the nationalization of a given enterprise
comes, not from the general governmental and proletariat organs
authorized for that purpose, but from the workmen of a given enterprise
or from some local or regional organization, then they propose to the
Supreme Council of National Economy, in the bureau of organization of
production, that the necessary steps be undertaken through the proper
production sections, according to the decree of 28th February regarding
the method of confiscating enterprises.

34. In exceptional cases local labor organizations are given the right
to take temporarily under their management the given enterprise, if
circumstances do not permit of awaiting the decision of the question
in the regular order, but on condition that such action be immediately
brought to the notice of the nearest provincial council of national
economy, which then puts a temporary sequestration upon the enterprise
pending the complete solution of the question of nationalization by
the Supreme Council of National Economy; or, if it shall consider
the reasons insufficient, or nationalization clearly inexpedient,
or a prolonged sequestration unnecessary, it directs a temporary
sequestration or even directly re-establishes the former management
of the enterprise under its supervision, or introduces into the
composition of the management representatives of labor organizations.

35. The present order must be furnished by the professional unions of
All Russia to all their local divisions, and by the councils of factory
committees to all factory committees, and must be published in full in
the _Izvestia_ of all provincial councils of workmen’s and peasants’
deputies.

_Published March 7, 1918._

III

INSTRUCTIONS ON WORKERS’ CONTROL

(_Official Text_)

I. Agencies of Workers’ Control in Each Enterprise.

I. Control in each enterprise is organized either by the Shop
or Factory Committee, or by the General Assembly of workers and
employees of the enterprise, who elect a Special Commission of
Control.

II. The Shop or Factory Committee may be included in its
entirety in the Control Commission, to which may be elected
also technical experts and other employees of the enterprise.
In large-scale enterprises, participation of the employees
in the Control Commission is compulsory. In large-scale
enterprises a portion of the members of the Control Commission
is elected by trade sections and classes, at the rate of one to
each trade section or class.

III. The workers and employees not members of the Control
Commission may not enter into relations with the management of
the enterprise on the subject of control except upon the direct
order and with the previous authorization of the Commission.

IV. The Control Commission is responsible for its activity
to the General Assembly of employees and workers of the
enterprise, as well as to the agency of workers’ control upon
which it is dependent and under the direction of which it
functions. It makes a report of its activity at least twice a
month to these two bodies.

II. Duties and Privileges of the Control Commission.

V. The Control Commission of each enterprise is required:

2. To determine to what extent the plant is provided with
everything that is necessary to insure its normal operation.

3. To forecast whether there is danger of the plant closing
down or lowering production, and what the causes are.

4. To determine the number of workers by specialties likely to
be unemployed, basing the estimate upon the reserve supply and
the expected receipt of fuel and materials.

5. _To determine the measures to be taken to maintain
discipline in work among the workers and employees._

6. To superintend the execution of the decisions of
governmental agencies regulating the buying and selling of
goods.

(_b_) To assist in explaining the causes of the lowering of
production and to take measures for raising it.

8. To assist in elucidating the possibility of a complete or
partial utilization of the plant for some kind of production
(especially how to pass from a war to a peace footing, and
what kind of production should be undertaken), to determine
what changes should be made in the equipment of the plant and
in the number of its personnel to accomplish this purpose; to
determine in what period of time these changes can be effected;
to determine what is necessary in order to make them, and the
probable amount of production after the change is made to
another kind of manufacture.

9. To aid in the study of the possibility of developing the
kinds of labor required by the necessities of peace-times,
such as the method of using three shifts of workmen, or any
other method, by furnishing information on the possibilities of
housing the additional number of laborers and their families.

10. _To see that the production of the plant is maintained
at the figures to be fixed by the governmental regulating
agencies, and, until such time as these figures shall have been
fixed, to see that the production reaches the normal average
for the plant, judged by a standard of conscientious labor._

11. To co-operate in estimating costs of production of the
plant upon the demand of the higher agency of workers’ control
or upon the demand of the governmental regulating institutions.

VI. Upon the owner of the plant, the decisions of the Control
Commission, which are intended to assure him the possibility of
accomplishing the objects stated in the preceding articles,
are binding. In particular the Commission may, of itself or
through its delegates:

1. Inspect the business correspondence of the plant, all the
books and all the accounts pertaining to its past or present
operation.

2. Inspect all the divisions of the plant--shops, stores,
offices, etc.

3. Be present at meetings of the representatives of the
directing agencies; make statements and address interpellations
to them on all questions relating to control.

VII. _The right to give orders to the directors of the plant,
and the management and operation of the plant are reserved
to the owner. The Control Commission does not participate in
the management of the plant and has no responsibility for its
development and operation. This responsibility rests upon the
owner._

VIII. The Control Commission is not concerned with financial
questions of the plant. If such questions arise they are
forwarded to the governmental regulating institutions.

IX. _The Control Commission of each enterprise may, through
the higher organ of workers’ control, recommend for the
consideration of the governmental regulating institutions the
question of the sequestration of the plant or other measures of
constraint upon the plant, but it has not the right to seize
and direct the enterprise._

III. Resources of the Control Commission of each Plant.

X. To cover the expenses of the Control Commission, the owner
is bound to place at its disposal not more than two per cent.
of the amount paid out by the plant in wages. The wages lost
by the members of the Factory or Shop Committee and by the
members of the Control Commission as a result of performing
their duties during working hours when they cannot be performed
otherwise, are paid out of this two-per-cent. account. Control
over expenditures from the above-mentioned fund is exercised by
the Commission of Control and Distribution of the trades-unions
of the industrial branch concerned.

IV. Higher Agencies of Workers’ Control.

XI. The organ immediately superior to the Control Commission
of each enterprise consists of the Commission of Control and
Distribution of the trades-union of the industrial branch to
which the plant in question belongs.

All decisions of the Control Commissions of each enterprise may
be appealed to the Commission of Control and Distribution of
the trades-union exercising jurisdiction.

XII. At least half of the members of the Commission of Control
and Distribution are elected by the Control Commissions (or
their delegates) of all plants belonging to the same branch
of industry. These are convened by the directors of the
trades-union. The other members are elected by the directors,
or by delegates, or else by the General Assembly of the
trades-union. Engineers, statisticians, and other persons who
may be of use, are eligible to election to membership in the
Commission of Control and Distribution.

XIII. The executive directorate of the union is authorized to
direct and review the activity of the Commission of Control and
Distribution and of the Control Commission of each plant under
its jurisdiction.

XIV. The Control Commission of each plant constitutes the
executive agency of the Commission of Control and Distribution
for its branch of industry, and is bound to make its activity
conform to the decisions of the latter.

XV. The Commission of Control and Distribution of the
trades-union has the authority of its own accord to convene the
General Assembly of workers and employees of each enterprise,
to require new elections of Control Commissions of each plant,
and likewise to propose to the governmental regulating agencies
the temporary closing down of plants or the dismissal of all
the personnel or of a part of it, in case the workers employed
in the plant will not submit to its decisions.

XVI. The Commission of Control and Distribution has entire
control over all branches of industry within its district, and
according to the needs of any one plant in fuel, materials,
equipment, etc., assists that plant in obtaining supplies from
the reserve of other plants of the same kind either in active
operation or idle. If other means cannot be found, it proposes
to the Governmental Regulating Commissions to close down
particular plants so that others may be sustained, or to place
the workmen and employees of plants which have been closed
down, either temporarily or definitively, in other plants
engaged in the same kind of manufacture, or to take any other
measures which are likely to prevent the closing down of plants
or an interruption in their operation, or which are thought
capable of insuring the regular operation of said plants in
conformity with the plans and decisions of the governmental
regulating agencies.

_Remark._--The Commissions of Control and Distribution issue
technical instructions for the Control Commissions of each
plant of their branch of industry and according to their
technical specialties. These instructions must not in any
respect be inconsistent with these regulations.

XVII. Appeal may be made against all decisions and all acts
of the Commission of Control and Distribution to the regional
Council of Workers’ Control.

XVIII. The operating expenses of the Commission of Control
and Distribution for each branch of industry are covered by
the balances in the treasury of each plant (Art. 17) and by
equal assessments on the state and the trades-union exercising
jurisdiction.

XIX. The Local Council of Workers’ Control considers and
decides all questions of a general nature for all or for any of
the Commissions of Control and Distribution of a given locality
and co-ordinates their activity to conform with advices
received from the All-Russian Council of Control by the Workers.

XX. Each Council of Workers’ Control should enact compulsory
regulations to govern the working discipline of the workmen and
employees of the plants under its jurisdiction.

XXI. The Local Council of Workers’ Control may establish within
it a council of experts, economists, statisticians, engineers,
or other persons who may be useful.

XXII. The All-Russian Council of Workers’ Control may charge
the All-Russian Trades-Union or the regional trades-union
of any branch of industry with the duty of forming an
All-Russian Commission or a Regional Commission of Control and
Distribution, for the given branch of industry. The regulations
for such an All-Russian or Regional Commission of Control and
Distribution, drafted by the Union, must be approved by the
All-Russian Council of Workers’ Control.

XXIII. All decisions of the All-Russian Soviet of Workers’
Control and all decisions of other governmental regulating
agencies in the realm of economic regularization are binding
upon all the agencies of the institution of workers’ control.

XXIV. These regulations are binding upon all institutions of
workers’ control, and apply _in toto_ to plants which employ
one hundred or more workmen and employees. Control over plants
employing a smaller personnel will be effected as far as
possible on the basis of these instructions as a model.

INDEX

Adjustment committees, 203.

Administrative officials, increase in, 236, 241, 242.

Advertising monopoly, decreed, 323.

Aeroplane-factories, decline of output in, 207.

Agents, provocative, use of, 4.

Agriculture, nationalization of, 82, 83, 84, 85.

Agunov, A., incarcerated, 319.

Alexander Works, strike at, 248, 250.

Alexinsky, Gregory, reports of Joint Congress, 291, 321.

Alien agitators, deportation of, 152, 153 _n_.

Allies, intervention by, 155, 190;
deserted by Bolsheviki, 308;
and blockade of Russia, 431-438.

“Allotment gardens” scheme, 87, 88.

Alminsky, on Extraordinary Commission, 159, 160.

Anarchy, among peasants, 7, 72, 74, 75, 96, 97, 99, 100, 212.

Andreiv, Leonid, 319.

Anti-Bolshevist press exterminated, 324.

Anti-Jewish pogroms, 103.

Antonelli, Etienne, 155.

Arakcheev, Count, and militarization of agricultural labor, 399.

Arbitration committees, 203.

Armed force, failed, 124, 125, 136.

Armistice, the, 432.

Army:
demoralization of, 216;
labor, 391-409;
under Soviet direction, 446, 447.

Arrests, mass, 155.

Arthur Koppel Works, strike at, 248.

Assemblage, freedom of, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, 347, 348.

Astrov, Cadet, property confiscated, 165.

Auditoriums, publicly owned, 349;
controlled by workmen’s organizations, 350.

Aviation plant, wage system, 259.

Axelrod-Orthodox, 321.

Babeuf, Gracchus, death, 426.

Ballot, secrecy of, 49.

Berkenheim, Alexander, and blockade, 435, 436.

Bezhenov, quoted, 287 _n_.

Black Hundreds, reign of terror, 4.

Blockade, Russian, 431-438.

Blue gendarmes, reign of terror, 4.

Bogdanov, N., report on nationalization of agriculture, 83, 84, 85.

Bolsheviki:
control in Russia, 1;
methods, 2;
rule of blood and iron, 3;
Red Guards, 4;
system of espionage, 4, 5;
abandoned theories, 5;
opposed to first Soviet, 12, 16, 22-28;
apologists, 31;
discontent and hatred against, 33;
peasants hostile to, 82;
and transportation system, 91;
charged with brutality and crime, 92;
and distribution of land, 97, 98, 99;
instigate peasants to murder, 103;
grain decree, 104, 453-464;
create committees of the poor, 109;
and terrorism, 140-191;
brutal methods, 144, 145, 146, 147;
despotic and tyrannical, 194;
demand abolition of death penalty, 157;
restore death penalty, 158;
torture at inquest, 174;
and Soviet control of industry, 198;
decline of productivity under, 209, 210, 211;
propaganda, 210, 220, 411, 412;
and demoralization of army, 210, 216;
and maximum production, 215;
and seizure of government, 215;
and factory control, 216, 217, 218, 219;
and trades-unions, 247-258;
bureaucracy of, 263-267;
and civil war, 292, 308;
party formed, 309;
brutal methods to maintain power, 311;
suppression of newspapers, 313-317;
hostility to freedom of press, 317-319, 329, 332-339;
and public assemblage, 342-346;
and conscription of labor, 374-383;
and labor army, 391, 392, 406;
attitude toward Constituent Assembly, 414, 415, 421;
election against, 417, 419;
wholesale shootings, 422;
sufferings of
Russia under, 423;
and czarism, 426;
unpardonable crime of, 428;
and blockade, 431-438;
treachery, 438;
agitation against German Government, 443, 444;
and Brest-Litovsk treaty, 444;
decree on education, 450;
and militarism, 451.

Bolshevism:
developed new bureaucracy, 4;
defined, 16;
and nationalization of industry, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 307;
fall inevitable, 307;
abhorrent, 307;
perversion of Socialistic idea, 307;
tragic failure, 413;
a government by force, 413;
universal spread of, 438, 439, 440.

Bolshevist:
régime tottering, 1;
adaptability, 5;
propaganda, 210, 220, 411, 412;
congress of, 421.

Bonch-Bruyevich, and Red Terror, 141.

Bourgeoisie, massacre of, 144;
mobilization of, 376, 377, 378, 379.

Bread scarcity, 261, 262, 297.

Breshkovsky, Catherine, 319.

Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 29, 30, 321, 432, 442, 443, 444.

Brichkina, S., and Labor Army, 392-396.

Bryant, Louise, 154.

Bucharin, and trades-unions, 255;
_The Program of the Communists_, 334, 439;
and freedom of the press, 335, 337;
a tyrant, 351;
editor of _Pravda_, 358.

Bullitt, William C., 154.

Bureaucracy:
developed, 4;
of the Bolsheviki, 263-267;
corruption of, 268-274;
efficiency of, 275-279;
increase, 444.

Bureaucratic red tape, 284.

Capitalism, return to, 247.

Capital punishment, abolition of, 157;
restoration of, 158.

“Centrosoyuz,” 435, 436.

Chernov, 74, 76, 78.

Chicherine, relations with British Government, 443.

_Chief Tasks of Our Times, The_, 226, 439.

Children executed, 145, 146.

_Chresvychaika, The_, 154, 155, 169, 451.

_Civil War in France_, Marx, 356.

Civil War in Russia, 292.

Clergy denied right to vote, 46.

Coal-mines, low production, 228, 229, 262.

Coal:
transportation, 283, 285;
supply, 296.

Code of Labor Laws of Soviet Russia, 371, 374, 380, 381, 382, 390.

Commissars, Council of People’s, 54, 55, 56, 57, 63, 66.

Committee, All-Russian Central Executive, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60,
61, 66.

Committee of the Poor established, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115.

Committees, extraordinary, brutal and corrupt, 4.

Commune of 1871, Paris, 356, 429, 430, 431.

Communes, agricultural, 86, 87.

_Communist Manifesto_, Marx, 353, 354, 356.

Communist Party:
hatred of, 33;
creation of, 35;
dictatorship over Russian people, 357;
responsibility, 358;
predominance of, in Soviet Government, 359;
in the army, 359;
mobilization
of regiments by, 360;
membership, 360, 361, 362, 364;
campaign for new members, 363, 364;
represents minority of organized proletariat, 365.

Congresses of the Soviets, The, 52, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 66.

Conscription by decree, 446.

Conscription of labor, 369, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381,
382, 383, 400, 401, 406.

Constituent Assembly:
elections, 15, 16, 193, 194, 195, 417, 418, 426;
and land problem, 76-81;
convocation of, 141, 142, 158, 414, 415, 416, 420;
dispersed, 311, 420;
betrayal of, 421.

Constitution of the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, 62, 421.

Control Commission, the, instructions to, 216, 217, 218, 219.

Corn, transport, 285.

Corruption of the bureaucracy, 268-274.

Cotton-factories, idle, 286.

“Cottonized” flax, 288.

Cotton substitute, 288.

Council of the People’s Commissaries, 22, 23, 193, 194.

Council of Workmen’s Deputies of Petrograd organized, 12.

Counter-revolutionists, destruction of, 156, 157.

Courts of justice abolished, 149.

Cultivation, decline in, 113, 121.

Czarism, opposition to, 2;
ruled by brute force, 3;
developed bureaucracy, 4, 139;
destroyed, 426.

_Das Kapital_, 356.

Day-work payments, 281.

Death penalty, right to inflict, 156, 157, 158, 159;
abolished, 190.

Decree No. 903, 167, 168.

Deportation, provisions for, 152, 153.

Deputies, Soviet of, 59, 60.

Deserters, army, 446;
shooting of relatives, 447.

Desertion, mass, 210.

Deutsch, Leo, 321.

_Dictatorship of the Proletariat_, 225 _n_.

Dictatorship of the proletariat, 298, 306.

_Dien, The_, suppressed, 319, 320, 321, 322.

Dioneo-Shklovsky, on wholesale massacres, 144.

Disfranchisement, right of, 48, 49, 51.

Documents:
decree regarding grain control, 453-456;
regulation concerning the administration of national undertakings,
456-464;
instructions on Workers’ Control, 465-472.

Donetz Basin coal-fields, output, 228;
supply from, 296.

Dukhonine, General, murdered, 320.

Dumas, Charles, on village wars, 103;
on Schastny case, 173, 174.

Dumas, city, 195, 197.

_Dyelo Naroda_, quoted, 35;
suppressed, 319, 321, 322.

Dzerzhinsky, proclamation by, 183, 184.

_Economicheskaya Zhizn_, quoted, 88, 282, 282 _n_, 283, 284, 285, 286,
287, 288, 289, 293, 307.

_Edinstvo_, suppressed, 318.

Education, decrees on, 450.

Efficiency of the bureaucracy, 275-279.

Eight-hour day, 229, 232, 237, 349.

Elections, Soviet, 46, 47, 48.

Electoral franchise withheld, 45, 46, 47, 51.

Electorate, divided into two groups, 63.

Electric-lamp factories closed, 287.

Engels, Frederick, and the modern state, 8;
quoted, 9, 10, 128;
and Marx, 356.

Eroshkin, M. C., on Committees of the Poor, 114, 115;
and uprisings against Soviets, 148, 149.

Estates, nationalization of, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 95, 96;
confiscated, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101.

Eupatoria, massacres in, 144.

Exchange stations established, 136, 137.

Executions:
mass, held at Rostov-on-Don, 145;
Mihont trial, 222.

Exports, 433, 434.

Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution, created,
154, 155;
proclamation, 156;
shooting of people by, 158, 159, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169,
170, 171;
powers limited, 180.

Eyre, Lincoln, and the _Chresvychaikas_, 155;
on compulsory labor, 374.

Factories:
closing of, 87, 300;
confiscated, 205, 211, 216, 225, 227, 237;
abandoned by owners, 237;
nationalized, 300.

Factory:
owners forced out, 198, 204, 205;
councils, 198, 199, 200, 201;
owners recalled, 212;
control
under Provisional Government, 216, 217, 218, 219.

Famine, 121, 136, 138, 245, 246, 289, 290.

Feeding, class system of, 185, 186.

Fir cones, collected for fuel, 285.

Flax, production, 294, 295;
export, 295, 435.

Food:
army, 112;
hoarding, 122, 123;
transportation, 285;
supply, 433;
shortage, 435, 437.

Food-requisitioning detachments:
formed, 107, 111, 112;
reports on, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120;
unsuccessful visits, 122, 123;
resistance to, 136.

Freedom, promise of, 451.

Free trade, forbidden, 185.

Freight-tonnage, decrease in, 236.

French Revolution, 422, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428.

Fuel, situation, 285;
shortage, 295, 296.

Fuel supply, failure of, 244.

Gas, absence of, 288.

George III, and equal suffrage, 414.

Gendarmes, Russia ruled by, 3, 4.

Genzelli brothers, shot, 172.

Germany, peace with Russia, 308, 431.

Girondins, 427.

Goldman, L. I., on Jaroslav uprisings, 23.

Goode, William T., 154;
on judicial system of Soviet Russia, 178, 179.

Gorky, Maxim, on village wars, 97, 103;
“The Policy of Despair,” 107;
and armed force, 124;
on brutal methods of the Bolsheviki, 144, 145;
paper suppressed, 322.

Gostev, on nationalization of industry, 239.

Grain control, decree regarding, 453-456.

Grain:
shipments, 123, 124;
exchanged, 136;
control of, 104, 453-456;
profiteers, 105;
regulations, 105, 106;
requisitioned, 107, 108, 109, 112;
curtailment of production, 121;
hoarding, 122, 123;
speculation in, 122, 123.

Guards, Red, special privileges, 4.

Gukovsky, commissar of finances, on railway system, 236;
on marine transportation service, 236;
report on Budget, 238.

Guyot, Yves, 369.

Hand-cart, prize for invention of, 284.

“Hangman’s Journal, The,” 170.

Hard, William, and suppression of newspapers, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317,
318, 330, 342.

Haulage system, rope, introduced, 285;
instead of railways, 306.

Hides, production, 295.

Holidays, increase of, 228.

Horses, disappearance, 284.

_How the Russian Peasants Fought for a Constituent Assembly_, 142 _n_.

Hunger, unemployment cause of, 87, 88.

Huxley, 369.

Imports, 433.

Industrial allotments, administration of, established, 87.

Industrial establishments, policy of subsidizing, 238.

Industry:
nationalization of, 82, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243;
Soviet control of, 198, 213, 214, 215;
disorganized, 238.

International, Third, an instrument of revolution, 440, 441.

Ivanovsky, Michael, shooting of, 184.

_Izvestia_, on peasant uprisings, 117, 118, 119;
quoted, 24, 115, 118, 138, 143, 163, 170, 183-187, 195, 196, 197,
198, 205, 222-224, 262, 266, 268, 271, 305, 328, 378, 402-405.

Jacobins, 427.

“Jacqueries,” revival of, 74.

Jandarmov, on production, 210, 211, 212.

Jaroslav insurrection, 22, 23, 24.

Jews, persecuting of, 347.

Joffe, on “Revolutionary Methods,” 443.

Journals, suppressed, 5.

Judicial system, democratic, 149;
of Soviet Russia, 178, 179.

Kalinin, and conciliation of the middle peasantry, 134, 135, 136.

Kamenev:
on Constituent Assembly, 15;
and death penalty, 157;
and constitutional assembly, 193;
on profiteering, 304;
and universal spread of Bolshevism, 438.

Kautsky, and the dictatorship of the proletariat, 356.

Keeling, H. V., on suppression of Soviets, 27;
on Soviet elections, 33.

Keely, Royal C., and compulsory labor, 374.

Kerensky, A. F., Premier of Provincial Government, 2, 3;
land
program, 74, 76, 77;
and demoralization of industry, 91;
and deserting soldiers, 96;
and German counter-revolutionists, 157;
overthrow, 193;
on increased production, 210;
and industrial control, 219;
and help for industrial establishments, 238.

Kerensky, Alexander, translator, 283 _n_.

Kerzheutzer, on “requisition parties,” 116, 117.

Kiev, massacres in, 145.

Knielnitski, Bogdan, revolt of, 429.

Kobozev, Commissar of Communications, on inactivity of the workers,
237.

Kohoshkin, F. F., murder of, 143.

Kopp, Victor, on grain exports, 434.

Kornilov, on decline of productivity, 207.

Krassin, Leonid B., and reorganization of industry, 279;
appointment as commissary, 280;
industrial despot, 281;
reorganized system, 282;
and transportation, 283, 284, 285;
on the fall of Bolshevism, 307;
on grain exports, 434.

Krivoshayer, report on requisitioning detachments, 120.

Krylenko, and capture of General Headquarters, 320;
report on military organization, 446.

Labor booklet, 386, 387, 388, 389.

Labor distribution, department of, 383, 384, 385, 386.

Labor, time limit, 212;
low productivity, 297;
shortage, 304, 305;
conscription of, 369, 370,
374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381, 382, 383, 391, 400, 401, 409.

Land commissions created, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81.

Landowners murdered, 72, 74.

Land:
seized, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76;
law, 78, 79;
socialization of, 80, 83, 87, 88, 89;
distribution of, 95-103, 426.

Latzis, on conditions in Province of Vitebsk, 117.

_L’Avanti_, of Rome, 350.

_La Vérité sur les Bolsheviki_, Charles Dumas, 103 _n_.

Laws, Russian, 39, 40, 45, 46, 47, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56.

League of Nations, Supreme Council of, 436.

Leather-factories, output, 286, 287.

Lenin, Nicolai, internal opposition, 1;
theories abandoned, 5;
and Constitutional Assembly, 15, 415, 416, 417, 419;
opposed Soviets, 18;
report on peasant uprisings, 119;
attitude toward peasantry, 127, 128-134;
and Menshevist Social Democrats, 127;
attempted assassination of, 140, 141, 148, 160, 161, 162, 164;
on terrorism, 147;
and death penalty, 157;
on elections, 194;
on success of Socialism in Russia, 222, 223, 224;
and Soviet meetings, 230;
and new-born bourgeoisie, 263;
on administration by single individual, 305, 306;
analysis of, by Rosa Luxemburg, 309;
estimate of, by P. Rappaport, 310;
contempt for democratic ways, 310;
brutal methods, 311, 312;
and freedom of the press, 332, 333, 337;
report on “Bourgeois and Proletarian Democracies,” 345, 346;
a tyrant, 351;
_Two Tactics_, 352;
and Marxism, 353, 354, 355;
on dictatorship of the proletariat, 358;
anti-statists, 371, 372, 373;
on compulsory labor, 375, 380;
and labor army, 392-396;
and equal suffrage, 414;
on freedom of speech, publication, and assemblage, 420;
new set of principles, 421;
and Paris Commune, 429, 430;
and universal spread of Bolshevism, 438, 439;
and Soviet direction of army, 447.

_Le Peuple_, of Brussels, 350.

_Les Bolsheviks à l’œuvre_, 147 _n_.

Levine, Isaac Don, on Soviet Russia, 37, 154.

_L’Humanité_, 350.

Liberty, the right of discussion, 313.

Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 338;
and equal suffrage, 414.

Litvinov, and revolutionary agitation, 442.

Livestock, decline in quantity, 295.

Lockerman, M., on terrorism, 147.

Locomotives, lack of, 261, 262;
disabled, 292, 293, 299.

Lock-outs, 249.

Lomov, and return to capitalism, 247.

Louis XVI, overthrow, 425.

Machine-shops closed, 238.

Magna Charta, signing of, 413.

Malone, M. P., Colonel, 154, 155.

Manufactured goods, lessening of production, 138.

Marine transportation service, nationalized, 236;
demoralized, 236.

Martov, L., protest against restoration
of death penalty, 157, 158;
account of Schastny trial, 174, 175;
on red tape and waste, 284;
accuses Lenin, 321.

Marx, Karl, theory, 128, 425;
and social evolution, 241;
Socialism of, 339;
teachings, 353;
_Communist Manifesto_, 353, 354;
death, 353;
meaning of the term “proletariat,” 354, 355, 356;
and universal suffrage, 414;
_Civil War in France_, 431.

Marxian Socialists of Russia, 227, 271.

Marxism and Leninism, 353, 354.

Marx Printing Works, wage-system, 259.

Massacres, wholesale, 144, 145.

Material, raw, lack of, 238;
transportation, 293, 294.

Match-factories, output, 287.

“Meeting-holding” and loss of time, 230, 231.

Melnikov, P., and execution of children, 146.

_Memorandum on Certain Aspects of the Bolshevist Movement in Russia,
A_, quoted, 33.

Menshekov, on Soviet elections, 35;
report on production, 208.

Mensheviki:
opposed to Bolsheviki, 12;
stand on Soviet platform, 32;
faction of Social Democratic Party, 67;
party formed, 309.

Metal, transportation, 294.

Metal workers idle, 286.

Militarism, freedom from, 451.

Military Revolutionary committees, 26.

Miliukov, and government employees, 264.

Miliutin, on nationalization of industry, 239.

_Mir_, privileged journal, 325.

Mizkevich, publicist, 450.

Mobilization, forcible, 125.

Molot, priest, arrest, 164.

Money, loan, 238;
paper issue, 238, 246.

Monks, denied right to vote, 46.

Montagnards, the, 427.

Moscow railway workshops, decline in production, 228, 229.

Mothers petition for lives of their children, 146.

Munition-works, decline of output in, 207, 208.

Mytishchy Works, Moscow, loss of production, 228, 229.

_Nache Slovo_, fined, 329.

_Narodnoye Slovo_, suppressed, 319.

_Nasha Rech_, suppressed, 318.

_Nashe Yedinstvo_, confiscated, 321.

Nationalization:
of the land, 83, 85, 88;
of industry, 260, 280, 282;
policy, demand for abolition, 298.

Nationalized industries, financing, 288;
picture of, 307.

Nemensky, and government employees, 264.

Nevsky Shipbuilding and Engineering Works, premium system restored,
259;
closed, 286.

Newspaper, compulsory purchase of, 326.

Newspapers: suppressed, 313-319;
“nationalized,” 324;
fined, 329;
denied circulation through mails, 324.

Nicholas II, Czar, 62;
regulations, 343;
and equal suffrage, 414;
overthrow, 425.

Nikolaiev, on agricultural communes, 86.

Noble Factory, wage-system, 259.

_Notch_, suppressed, 320.

_Novayia Zhizn_, suppressed, 322.

Novotcherkassk, massacres in, 145.

_Novoye Vremia_, establishment seized, 323.

_Novy Looch_, suppressed, 321, 322.

Oberoucheff, Gen. C. M., quoted, 3.

Obligatory Regulation No. 27, 326, 327.

“Off days,” increase of, 228.

Oil, fuel, deficiency, 285.

_Okhrana_ (Czar’s Secret Service), reign of terror, 4, 46.

_Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State_, 10.

Oupovalov, J. E., on suppression of Soviets, 29, 30;
on increased production, 209;
and trades-unions, 253;
on public assemblage, 340, 341.

_Outre Rossii_, fined, 329.

Overtime, 281.

Paper currency, worthless, 137, 138.

Pauper committees established, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 115.

Peasantry:
Lenin’s attitude toward, 127-134;
Kalinin on, 134-136.

Peasants:
voters discriminated against, 66;
uprisings among, 72, 73, 74, 75, 92, 96, 100, 101, 102, 148, 149;
character, 92, 93;
savage brutality, 93, 94;
soldier deserters, 96, 97;
distribution of land among, 97, 98, 99;
conflict with Soviet authorities, 98, 99;
resist grain regulations,
106, 107, 112;
city proletariat against, 107;
opposed to Committees of the Poor, 114, 115;
resist requisitioning detachments, 120, 121, 122;
curtail production, 121;
revolt against Soviet rule, 121, 122;
hoarding food, 122, 123;
resist forcible mobilization, 125;
and exchange stations, 136, 137;
robbed of grain, 137;
and Soviet power, 138.

People’s commissaries, 32.

People’s food commissioner, powers of, 105, 106.

People’s tribunals, cases and sentences cited, 93, 94.

Petrograd Soviet of Workmen’s Deputies organized, 12, 13.

Petrovsky, call for mass terror, 162, 163.

Piece-work system, 247, 252, 259, 280.

Platonov, on agricultural communes, 87.

Plechanov, George V., publication confiscated, 319, 321.

“Policy of Despair, The,” Gorky, 107.

Political offenses, special tribunals for, 150, 151, 152.

Politicians, ousted, 281.

_Polnotch_, suppressed, 320.

Potresov, Alexander, opinions of, 319, 320.

_Pravda_, quoted, 6, 26, 96, 110, 125, 128-134, 159, 194, 261, 317,
344-346, 363, 364, 447.

Premiums, 280.

Press Department, 325.

Press, Russian, freedom of, 315, 316, 317, 318, 322, 329, 332, 333,
334, 335, 336, 337, 339, 350, 351.

Prinkipo Conference, 441.

Printing establishments “nationalized,” 323.

Printers’ union, suppressed, 252.

Prisons, city, conditions in, 179.

Production, decrease under Soviet government, 208, 209, 212, 227, 228,
229, 241, 242.

Productivity, decline in, 204, 206, 207, 208.

Profiteering, proceedings against, 150.

_Program of the Communists, The_, 334, 439.

Proletariat:
dictatorship of the, 352, 353, 355, 356;
meaning of, 354;
uprising of, 355.

“Proletcult” of Soviet Russia, 450.

Propaganda, 441.

Provisional Government, the, 8, 12, 14, 15, 95, 197, 198, 203, 209,
210, 211, 215, 216, 226, 308, 414, 415, 426.

Putilov works, strike at, 248, 250.

_Rabatcheie Delo_, suppressed, 318.

_Rabochaia Gazeta_, suppressed, 318, 319.

Radek, and death penalty, 157.

Radek, and universal spread of Bolshevism, 438;
on Spartacist uprisings, 439.

Rakovsky, and death penalty, 157.

Railroad Workers’ Unions:
Congress of, 254;
merged with the state, 254, 255.

Railway system:
demoralized, 236;
operating expenses increased, 236.

Railways:
nationalized, 235, 237, 242, 243, 246;
deficits, 243;
service test, 243, 244;
collapse, 244, 246;
wood fuel for, 244, 245.

Railway transportation, 283, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 299.

Railway workers’ councils abolished, 236.

Rakitnikov, Inna, report on opening of Constituent Assembly, 141, 142.

_Ranee Outre_, fined, 329.

Ransome, Arthur, on Soviet Government, 32;
Bolsheviki sympathizer, 154;
on Red Terror, 180;
on powers of Extraordinary Commission, 181, 182.

Raw material, shortage, 301.

Razin, Stenka, revolt of, 429.

Red army:
deserters, 187;
whole families shot, 187, 188;
formation of, 447, 448.

Red Terror:
a reprisal, 140;
introduction of, 148;
a mad orgy, 160;
extent of, 177, 178;
ceased to exist, 180;
beginning of, 427.

Reed, John, 154.

Revolutionary Tribunal, the, decree constituting, 151, 152, 153, 154.

Revolutionary Tribunal of the Press, created, 328, 329.

Richter, Eugene, 369.

Reign of Terror in French Revolution, 422, 424, 427, 428.

Robins, Raymond, 154.

Romanov II, Nicholas, reign of, 330.

Rope haulage, 285, 306.

Ross, Professor, on strikes, 201;
on misuse of Soviet power, 204, 205;
on decline in productivity, 204, 205.

Rostov-on-Don, massacres in, 145.

Royd, Fanny, execution of, 174.

Rozanov, on agricultural communes, 87.

Russian:
Revolution, 195, 423, 425, 426, 427, 428;
Social Democratic Party, split of, 309;
blockade, 431-438;
peace with Germany, 431-433.

_Russkaya Volia_, suppressed, 319.

_Russkoye Bogatstvo_, suppressed, 322.

_Russkya Viedomasti_, suppressed, 322.

Rykov, A., and nationalization of industries, 239, 300;
on economic situation, 291, 292;
on transportation problem, 292, 293;
on production of flax, 294, 295;
and hides, 295;
and wool, 295;
on fuel situation, 295, 296, 297;
on grain, 297;
remedial measures proposed, 298, 299;
on textile industry, 301, 302;
as to the future, 302;
and skilled labor, 303, 304.

Sabotage, 150, 207, 210, 215, 220, 221, 223, 224.

Salt, disappeared from market, 288, 289;
substitute, 289.

Sawdust, substitute for sugar, 288.

Schastny, Admiral, trial and death, 172, 173, 174.

Scherbatchev factory, fall in production, 229.

Schliapnikoff, Commissar of Labor, quoted, 282 _n_.

Schneuer, Lieutenant, German spy, 320.

Sebastopol, massacres in, 144.

Seminov’s lumber mill, wage-system, 259.

Sentences, mass, 155.

Serfdom abolished, 92.

_Severnaya Communa_, subscription to, obligatory, 326, 327;
quoted, 25, 120, 166-169, 171, 179, 184, 185, 250-251, 258, 259-260,
342, 361.

Shingarev, A. I., murder of, 143.

Shliapnikov, protest against sabotage, 221, 222.

Shooting, mass, 170.

Shub, David N., on suppression of newspapers, 315, 319, 320, 321, 322,
323.

Simferopol, massacres in, 144.

Six-hour day, 349.

Skobelev, on seizure of factories, 205;
on decline of industrial output, 206, 207.

Smirnov, M., and execution of children, 146.

Smith, Goldwin, 369.

Socialism:
foe of individual freedom, 369;
critics of, 369, 370.

_Socialism, Utopian and Scientific_, 9.

Socialists, Marxian, 8, 10, 11;
join first Soviet, 12;
expelled from New York Legislature, 29;
and freedom of the press, 336;
press, 350.

Socialists-Revolutionists, party of, election, 417;
factions in, 419.

_Soldatskaia Pravda_, Bolshevist paper, 318.

Soldiers, peasant, deserters, 96, 210.

Soromovo Works, output, 227.

Soronov, shot, 184.

Sosnovsky, report on conditions in Tver Province, 117.

Soviet:
government in Russia, 16, 17;
system, 17, 18;
elections, 21, 22, 33, 34, 35, 36;
form of government explained, 38, 39;
estates, 83, 84, 85;
power, misuse of, 205;
increased cost of production under, 208;
control
of industries, 213, 214, 215, 219, 230, 231, 234;
control of factories, 216;
decree of instructions, 217, 218, 220, 225;
economic situation in 1919, 289;
official organ, 326, 327.

Sovietism:
merits of, 444;
increased bureaucracy, 444;
in industry, 445;
and direction of army, 446, 447;
impractical, 449.

_Soviets at Work, The_, 225 _n_, 226, 234.

Soviets:
formed, 12, 13;
irresponsible bodies, 13;
cleansed, 22;
dissolved, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27;
uprisings against, 148, 149;
waning power of, 195, 196, 197;
and decline in productivity, 208.

_Sovremennoie Delo_, suppressed, 318.

Spartacist uprisings, 439.

Speech, freedom of, 339, 420.

Spencer, Herbert, 369.

Spiridonova, Maria, on nationalization of estates, 82.

_State and Revolution, The_, 226 _n_, 373.

State loans, repudiation of, 238.

St. Bartholomew massacres, 144, 145.

Steffens, Lincoln, on Soviet form of government, 38, 40.

Steinberg, I. Z., “Instructions to the Revolutionary Tribunal,” 151.

Strikers, right to, 201, 248, 252;
wasteful, 204;
among factory workers, 210;
treason against state, 236;
epidemic of, 248;
suppressed with brutality, 248, 249, 250, 251, 281.

Strumillo, J., on suppression of Soviets, 30, 31.

Substitutes for needed articles, 288.

Suffrage, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 334, 335, 339, 354, 413, 414, 426.

Sugar industry, liquidated, 288;
sawdust substitute, 288.

“Sukharevka,” campaign against, 271, 272.

Syndicalism, 235.

Taylor system of management, 234.

Teachers union, suppressed, 252.

Teaching profession denied right to vote, 51, 52.

Terrorism and the Bolsheviki, 140-191.

Terror, mass, 162, 163.

Textile industries, decline in production, 229, 301, 302;
factories closed, 238;
idle workers, 286.

“Thermidorians,” 427.

Thomas, Norman, 330, 342.

Tomsky, on food-supplies, 302, 303;
on shortage of labor, 304, 305.

Trades-unions, Russian:
conservatism of, 17, 18;
and representation, 32;
right to nominate, 50;
Congress, 86, 87;
and agricultural communes, 87;
and strikes, 248, 252;
and wage-fixing, 248, 252;
and state capitalism, 252;
suppressed, 252, 253;
controlled by Bolsheviki, 252, 253;
deprived of power, 281;
status of, 382.

Transportation system, 91, 238, 283, 284, 285, 289, 308, 433.

Tribunals, revolutionary, critical and corrupt, 4.

Trotsky:
and internal opposition, 1;
on constitutional assembly, 15, 193;
and Jaroslav insurrection, 23;
dispersed constitutional assembly, 79, 80, 81;
and peasant uprisings, 121, 122;
and forcible mobilization, 125, 126;
on terrorism, 147, 183;
and guillotine, 148;
and death penalty, 157;
famous decree No. 903, 167;
and Admiral Schastny, 173, 175, 176;
on railway transportation, 293, 294;
on industrial failure, 301;
on dissipation of working-class, 303, 304;
on freedom of the press, 317, 332;
a tyrant, 351;
and communists in army, 359, 360;
and labor army, 391, 396-406;
denounced Kerensky, 415;
and universal spread of Bolshevism, 438, 439;
and deserters, 446, 447.

_Trudovoe Slovo_, suppressed, 318.

Trupp, Eugene, statement by, 163 _n_, 164 _n_.

Tseretelli, and decline of productivity, 204.

Tula Munition Works, strike at, 248;
premium system restored, 260.

Tyrants, defined, 312, 313.

Uprisings, peasant, 72, 73, 74, 75, 92, 96, 100, 101, 102, 148, 149.

Urals Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet, 21.

Uritzky, assassination of, 140, 148, 155, 158, 158 _n_, 159 _n_, 160,
161, 162, 163, 164, 167, 174.

_Utro_, suppressed, 318.

Vandervelde, Emile, on factory councils, 200.

Vasiliev, B. C., and execution of children, 145, 146.

Vassilyev, Dr. N., 321.

Verstraete, Maurice, description of Uritzky, 158 _n_, 159 _n_.

_V. Glookhooyou Notch_, suppressed, 320.

Village wars, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103.

Villard, Oswald, 330, 342.

_Vlast Naroda_, on village wars, 100, 101, 102.

_Volia Naroda_, suppressed, 318, 319.

_Vorwärts_, Berlin, 350.

_Vperiod_, suppressed, 329.

_Vsiegda Vperiod_, suppressed, 330.

_V. Temnooyou Notch_, suppressed, 320.

Wages committees, 202, 203.

Wage-system:
daily pay, 247, 252, 259;
piece-work, 247, 252, 259;
cash bonuses, 247, 252;
premiums, 259, 260.

Wheat reserve, 297.

White guards:
shooting of, 166, 186;
mass terror used against, 168.

White terror of the bourgeoisie, 140, 148.

Whitley Councils of England, 198.

Whitman, Walt, quoted, 338.

Women, liable to labor conscription, 382.

Wood fuel, transportation of, 244, 245, 284, 285, 295, 296.

Wool, production, 295.

Work-books, 386, 387, 388, 389.

Workers’ Control Commission, instructions on, 217, 218, 234.

Workers’ control, abolished, 281, 282 _n_.

Workmen’s and Peasants’ Revolutionary Tribunals established, 150.

Workmen’s:
supreme council, 214;
organs of control, 214;
superior court of control, 214.

Workmen, unemployed, 238.

Workshop committees, 199, 201, 202.

_Yedinstvo_, suppressed, 319, 321.

Zasulitch, Vera, 321.

Zemstvos, local, 195.

Zenzinov, V. M., on the Soviet Government, 31;
on freedom of assemblage, 339, 340.

Zinoviev:
on Constituent Assembly, 15;
and Red Terror, 141, 147;
and death penalty, 157;
on Soviet Russia, 290;
a tyrant, 351;
and universal spread of Bolshevism, 438, 439.

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[Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]

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