THE BOLSHEVIK WAR AGAINST DEMOCRACY
I
The defenders and supporters of the Bolsheviki have made much of the fact
that there was very little bloodshed connected with the successful
Bolshevik uprising in Petrograd. That ought not to be permitted, however,
to obscure the fundamental fact that it was a military _coup d'état_, the
triumph of brute force over the will of the vast majority of the people. It
was a crime against democracy. That the people were passive, worn out, and
distracted, content to wait for the Constituent Assembly, only makes the
Bolshevik crime appear the greater. Let us consider the facts very briefly.
Less than three weeks away was the date set for the Constituent Assembly
elections. Campaigns for the election of representatives to that great
democratic convention were already in progress. It was to be the most
democratic constitutional convention that ever existed in any country, its
members being elected by the entire population, every man and woman in
Russia being entitled to vote. The suffrage was equal, direct, universal,
and secret.
Moreover, there was a great democratic reconstruction of the nation
actually in progress at the time. The building up of autonomous democratic
local governing bodies, in the shape of a new type of zemstvos, was rapidly
progressing. The old-time zemstvos had been undemocratic and did not
represent the working-people, but the new zemstvos were composed of
representatives nominated and elected by universal suffrage, equal, secret,
and direct. Instead of being very limited in their powers as the old
zemstvos were, the new zemstvos were charged with all the ordinary
functions of local government. The elections to these bodies served as an
admirable practical education in democracy, making it more certain than
would otherwise have been the case that the Russian people would know how
to use their new political instrument so as to secure a Constituent
Assembly fully representing their will and their desire.
At the same time active preparations for holding the election of members to
the Constituent Assembly were actually under way. The Socialist parties
were making special efforts to educate the illiterate voters how to use
their ballots correctly. The Provisional Government, on its part, was
pushing the preparations for the elections as rapidly as possible. All over
the country special courts were established, in central places, to train
the necessary workers so that the elections might be properly conducted.
Above all, the great problem of the socialization of the land which had
been agitated for so many years had now reached the stage at which its
solution might almost have been said to be complete. The National Soviet of
Peasants, together with the Socialist Revolutionary party, had formulated a
law on the subject which represented the aspiration and the best thought of
the leaders of the peasants' movement. That law had been approved in the
Council of Ministers and was ready for immediate promulgation. Peasant
leaders like Chernov, Rakitnikov, Vikhiliaev, and Maslov had put an immense
amount of work into the formulation of this law, which aimed to avoid
anarchy, to see to it that instead of an individualistic scramble by the
peasants for the land, in small and unorganized holdings, the problem
should be scientifically dealt with, lands being justly distributed among
the peasant communes, and among the peasants who had been despoiled, and
large estates co-operatively organized and managed.
All this the Bolsheviki knew, for it was common knowledge. There is no
truth whatever in the claim set up by many of the apologists for the
Bolsheviki that they became enraged and resorted to desperate tactics
because nothing effective was being done to realize the aims of the
Revolution, to translate its ideals into fact. Quite the contrary is true.
_The Bolshevik insurrection was precipitated by its leaders precisely
because they saw that the Provisional Government was loyally and
intelligently carrying out the program of the Revolution, in co-operation
with the majority of the working-class organizations and their leaders._
The Bolsheviki did not want the ideals of the Revolution to be realized,
for the very simple reason that they were opposed to those ideals. In all
the long struggle from Herzen to Kerensky the revolutionary movement of
Russia had stood for political democracy first of all. Now, at the moment
when political democracy was being realized, the Bolsheviki sought to kill
it and to set up something else--namely, a dictatorship of a small party of
less than two hundred thousand over a nation of one hundred and eighty
millions. There can be no dispute as to this aim; it has been stated by
Lenine with great frankness. "_Just as one hundred and fifty thousand
lordly landowners under Czarism dominated the one hundred and thirty
millions of Russian peasants, so two hundred thousand members of the
Bolshevik party are imposing their proletarian will on the mass, but this
time in the interest of the latter._"[23]
Lenine's figures probably exaggerate the Bolshevik numbers, but, assuming
them to be accurate, can anybody in his right mind, knowing anything of the
history of the Russian revolutionary movement, believe that the
substitution of a ruling class of one hundred and fifty thousand by one of
two hundred thousand, to govern a nation of one hundred and eighty
millions, was the end to which so many lives were sacrificed? Can any sane
and sincere person believe that the class domination described by the great
arch-Bolshevik himself comes within measurable distance of being as much of
a realization of the ideals of the Revolution as did the Constituent
Assembly plan with its basis of political democracy, universal, equal,
direct, secret, all-determining suffrage? We do not forget Lenine's
statement that this new domination of the people by a ruling minority
differs from the old régime in that the Bolsheviki are imposing their will
upon the mass "_in the interest of the latter_." What ruling class ever
failed to make that claim? Was it not the habit of the Czars, all of them,
during the whole revolutionary epoch, to indulge in the pious cant of
proclaiming that they were motived only by their solicitude for the
interests and well-being of the peasants?
It is a curious illustration of the superficial character of the Bolshevist
mentality that a man so gifted intellectually as Lenine undoubtedly is
should advance in justification of his policy a plea so repugnant to
morality and intelligence, and that it should be quietly accepted by men
and women calling themselves radical revolutionists. Some years ago a
well-known American capitalist announced with great solemnity that he and
men like himself were the agents of Providence, charged with managing
industry "for the good of the people." Naturally, his naïve claim provoked
the scornful laughter of every radical in the land. Yet, strange as it may
seem, whenever I have pointed out to popular audiences that Lenine asserted
the right of two hundred thousand proletarians to impose their rule upon
Russia, always, without a single exception, some defender of the
Bolsheviki--generally a Socialist or a member of the I.W.W.--has entered
the plea, "Yes, but it is for the good of the people!"
If the Bolsheviki had wanted to see the realization of the ideals of the
Revolution, they would have found in the conditions existing immediately
prior to their insurrection a challenge calling them to the service of the
nation, in support of the Provisional Government and the Preliminary
Parliament. They would have permitted nothing to imperil the success of the
program that was so well advanced. As it was, determination to defeat that
program was their impelling motive. Not only did they fear and oppose
_political_ democracy; they were equally opposed to democracy in
_industry_, to that democracy in the economic life of the nation which
every Socialist movement in the world had at all times acknowledged to be
its goal. As we shall see, they united to political dictatorship industrial
dictatorship. They did not want democracy, but power; they did not want
peace, even, as they wanted power.
The most painstaking and sympathetic study of the Russian Revolution will
not disclose any great ideal or principle, moral or political, underlying
the distinctive Bolshevik agitation and program. Nothing could well be
farther from the truth than the view taken by many amiable people who,
while disavowing the actions of the Bolsheviki, seek to mitigate the
judgment which mankind pronounces against them by the plea that, after
all, they are extreme idealists, misguided, of course, but, nevertheless,
inspired by a noble ideal; that they are trying, as John Brown and many
others have tried, to realize a great ideal, but have been made incapable
of seeing their ideal in its proper perspective, and, therefore, of making
the compromises and adjustments which the transmutation of ideals to
reality always requires.
No sympathizer with Russia--certainly no Socialist--can fail to wish that
this indulgent criticism were true. Its acceptance would lighten the
darkest chapter in Russian history, and, at the same time, remove from the
great international Socialist movement a shameful reproach. But the facts
are incompatible with such a theory. Instead of being fanatical idealists,
incapable of compromises and adjustments, the Bolsheviki have, from the
very beginning, been loudly scornful of rigid and unbending idealism; have
made numerous compromises, alliances, and "political deals," and have
repeatedly shifted their ground in accordance with political expediency.
They have been consistently loyal to no aim save one--the control of power.
They have been opportunists of the most extreme type. There is not a single
Socialist or democratic principle which they have not abandoned when it
served, their political ends; not a single instrument, principle, or device
of autocratic despotism which they have not used when by so doing they
could gain power. For the motto of Bolshevism we might well paraphrase the
well-known line of Horace, and make it read, "Get power, honestly, if you
can, if not--somehow or other."
Of course, this judgment applies only to Bolshevism as such: to the special
and peculiar methods and ideas which distinguish the Bolsheviki from their
fellow-Socialists. It is not to be questioned that as Socialists and
revolutionists they have been inspired by some of the great ideals common
to all Socialists everywhere. But they differed from the great mass of
Russian Socialists so fundamentally that they separated themselves from
them and became a separate and distinct party. _That which caused this
separation is the essence of Bolshevism--not the ideals held in common_. No
understanding of Bolshevism is possible unless this fundamental fact is
first fully understood. Power, to be gained at any cost, and ruthlessly
applied, by the proletarian minority, is the basic principle of Bolshevism
as a distinct form of revolutionary movement. Of course, the Bolshevik
leaders sought this power for no sordid, self-aggrandizing ends; they are
not self-seeking adventurers, as many would have us believe. They are
sincerely and profoundly convinced that the goal of social and economic
freedom and justice can be more easily attained by their method than by the
method of democratic Socialism. Still, the fact remains that what social
ideals they hold are no part of Bolshevism. They are Socialist ideals.
Bolshevism is a distinctive method and a program, and its essence is the
relentless use of power by the proletariat against the rest of society in
the same manner that the bourgeois and military rulers of nations have
commonly used it against the proletariat. Bolshevism has simply inverted
the old Czarist régime.
The fairness and justice of this judgment are demonstrated by the
Bolsheviki themselves. They denounced Kerensky's government for not holding
the elections for the Constituent Assembly sooner, posing as the champions
of the Constituante. When they had themselves assumed control of the
government they delayed the meeting of the Constituent Assembly and then
suppressed it by force of arms! They denounced Kerensky for having
restored the death penalty in the army in cases of gross treachery,
professing an intense horror of capital punishment as a form of "bourgeois
savagery." When they came into power they instituted capital punishment for
_civil_ and _political offenses_, establishing public hangings and
floggings as a means of impressing the population![24] They had bitterly
assailed Kerensky for his "militarism," for trying to build up the army and
for urging men to fight. In less critical circumstances they themselves
resorted to forced conscription. They condemned Kerensky and his colleagues
for "interfering with freedom of speech and press." When they came into
power they suppressed all non-Bolshevist papers and meetings in a manner
differing not at all from that of the Czar's régime, forcing the other
Socialist parties and groups to resort to the old pre-Revolution
"underground" methods.
The evidence of all these things, and things even worse than these, is
conclusive and unimpeachable. It is contained in the records of the
Bolshevik government, in its publications, and in the reports of the great
Socialist parties of Russia, officially made to the International Socialist
Bureau. Surely the evidence sustains the charge that, whatever else they
may or may not be, the Bolsheviki are not unbending and uncompromising
idealists of the type of John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison, as they are
so often represented as being by well-meaning sentimentalists whose
indulgence of the Bolsheviki is as unlimited as their ignorance concerning
them.
Some day, perhaps, a competent psychologist will attempt the task of
explaining the psychology of our fellow-citizens who are so ready to defend
the Bolsheviki for doing the very things they themselves hate and condemn.
In any list of men and women in this country friendly to the Bolsheviki it
will be found that they are practically all pacifists and
anti-conscriptionists, while a great many are non-resistants and
conscientious objectors to military service. Practically all of them are
vigorous defenders of the freedom of the press, of the right of public
assemblage and of free speech. With the exception of a few Anarchists, they
are almost universally strong advocates of radical political democracy. How
can high-minded and intelligent men and women--as many of them are--holding
such beliefs as these give countenance to the Bolsheviki, who bitterly and
resolutely oppose all of them? How can they denounce America's adoption of
conscription and say that it means that "Democracy is dead in America"
while, at the same time, hailing the birth of democracy in Russia, where
conscription is enforced by the Bolsheviki? How, again, can they at one and
the same time condemn American democracy for its imperfections, as in the
matter of suffrage, while upholding and defending the very men who, in
Russia, deliberately set out to destroy the universal equal suffrage
already achieved? How can they demand freedom of the press and of
assemblage, even in war-time, and denounce such restrictions as we have had
to endure here in America, and at the same time uphold the men responsible
for suppressing the press and public assemblages in Russia in a manner
worse than was attempted by the Czar? Is there no logical sense in the
average radical's mind? Or can it be that, after all, the people who make
up the Bolshevist following, and who are so much given to engaging in
protest demonstrations of various kinds, are simply restless, unanchored
spirits, for whom the stimulant and excitation of revolt is a necessity?
How many are simply victims of subtle neuroses occasioned by sex
derangements, by religious chaos, and similar causes?
II
The Bolshevik rule began as a reign of terror. We must not make the mistake
of supposing that it was imposed upon the rest of Russia as easily as it
was imposed upon Petrograd, where conditions were exceptional. In the
latter city, with the assistance of the Preobrajenski and Seminovsky
regiments from the garrison, and of detachments of sailors from the Baltic
fleet, to all of whom most extravagant promises were made, the _coup
d'état_ was easily managed with little bloodshed. But in a great many other
places the Bolshevist rule was effected in no such peaceful fashion, but by
means of a bloody terror. Here, for example, is the account of the manner
in which the counter-revolution of the Bolsheviki was accomplished at
Saratov, as given by a competent eye-witness, a well-known Russian
Socialist whose long and honorable service in the revolutionary movement
entitles her to the honor of every friend of Free Russia--Inna
Rakitnikov:[25]
Here ... is how the Bolshevist _coup d'état_ took place at
Saratov. I was witness to these facts myself. Saratov is a big
university and intellectual center, possessing a great number of
schools, libraries, and divers associations designed to elevate
the intellectual standard of the population. The Zemstvo of
Saratov was one of the best in Russia. The peasant population of
this province, among whom the revolutionary Socialist propaganda
was carried on for several years, by the Revolutionary Socialist
party, is wide awake and well organized. The Municipality and the
Agricultural Committees were composed of Socialists. The
population was actively preparing for the elections to the
Constituent Assembly; the people discussed the list of candidates,
studied the candidates' biographies, as well as the programs of
the different parties. On the night of October 28th [November
10th, European calendar], by reason of an order that had come from
Petrograd, the Bolshevik _coup d'état_ broke out at Saratov. The
following forces were its instruments: the garrison, which was a
stranger to the mass of the population, a weak party of workers,
and, in the capacity of leaders, some Intellectuals, who, up to
that time, had played no rôle in the public life of the town.
It was indeed a military _coup d'état. The city hall, where sat
the Socialists, who were elected by equal, direct, and secret
universal suffrage, was surrounded by soldiers; machine-guns were
placed in front and the bombardment began. This lasted a whole
night; some were wounded, some killed_. The municipal judges were
arrested. Soon after a Manifesto solemnly announced to the
population that the "enemies of the people," the
"counter-revolutionaries," were overthrown; that the power of
Saratov was going to pass into the hands of the Soviet
(Bolshevist) of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates.
As soon as the overthrow of the existing authorities was effected and the
Bolsheviki, through their Red Guards and other means, were in a position to
exert their authority, they resorted to every method of oppression and
repression known to the old autocratic régime. They suppressed the papers
of the Socialist parties and groups opposed to them, and in some instances
confiscated the plants, turned out the editors, and used the papers
themselves. In one of his "Letters to the Comrades," published in the
_Rabochiy Put_, a few days before the insurrection, Lenine had confessed
that Kerensky had maintained freedom of the press and of assemblage. The
passage is worth quoting, not only for the information it contains
concerning the Kerensky régime, but also because it affords a standard by
which to judge the Bolsheviki. Lenine wrote:
The Germans have only one Liebknecht, no newspapers, no freedom of
assemblage, no councils; they are working against the intense
hostility of all classes of the population, including the wealthy
peasants--with the imperialist bourgeoisie splendidly
organized--and yet the Germans are making some attempt at
agitation; _while we, with tens of papers, with freedom of
assemblage, with the majority of the Council with us, we, the best
situated of all the proletarian internationalists, can we refuse
to support the German revolutionists in organizing a revolt?_
That it was not the "German revolutionists" who in November, 1917, wanted
the Russians to revolt against the Kerensky government, but the Majority
Socialists, upon whom Lenine had poured his contempt, on the one hand, and
the German General Staff, on the other hand, is a mere detail. The
important thing is that Lenine admitted that under the Kerensky government
the Russian workers, including the Bolsheviki, were "the best situated of
all the proletarian internationalists," and that they had "tens of papers,
with freedom of assemblage." In the face of such statements by Lenine
himself, written a few days before the Bolshevik counter-revolution, what
becomes of the charge that the suppression of popular liberties under
Kerensky was one of the main causes of the revolt of the Bolsheviki?
Against the tolerance of Kerensky, the arbitrary and despotic methods of
the Bolsheviki stand out in strong contrast. Many non-Bolshevist Socialist
organs were suppressed; papers containing matter displeasing to the
Bolshevik authorities were suspended, whole issues were confiscated, and
editors were imprisoned, precisely as in the days of the Czar. It became
necessary for the Socialist-Revolutionists to issue their paper with a
different title, and from a different place, every day. Here is the
testimony of Inna Rakitnikov again, contained in an official report to the
International Socialist Bureau:
All the non-Bolshevik newspapers were confiscated or prosecuted
and deprived of every means of reaching the provinces; their
editors' offices and printing-establishments were looted. After
the creation of the "Revolutionary Tribunal" the authors of
articles that were not pleasing to the Bolsheviki, as well as the
directors of newspapers, were brought to judgment and condemned to
make amends or go to prison, etc.
The premises of numerous organizations were being constantly
pillaged. The Red Guard came there to search, destroying different
documents; frequently objects which were found on the premises
disappeared. Thus were looted the premises of the Central
Committee of the Revolutionary Socialist party (27 Galernaia
Street) and--several times--the office of the paper _Dielo Naroda_
(22 Liteinia Street) ... the office of the paper Volya Naroda,
etc.... But the Central Committee ... continued to issue a daily
paper, only changing its title, as in the time of Czarism, and
thus continued its propaganda....
The _Yolya Naroda_, referred to by Inna Rakitnikov, was the official organ
of the Socialist-Revolutionary party. It was raided on several occasions.
For example, in January, 1918, the leaders of the party reported that a
detachment of Bolshevik Red Guards had broken into the office of the paper,
committed various depredations, and made several arrests.[26] Here is
another Socialist witness: One of the ablest of the leaders of the Bohemian
Socialists in the United States is Joseph Martinek, the brilliant and
scholarly editor of the Bohemian Socialist weekly, the _Delnicke Listy_. He
has always been identified with the radical section of the movement. A
student of Russian history, speaking the language fluently, it was his good
fortune to spend several weeks in Petrograd immediately before and after
the Bolshevik counter-revolution. He testifies that the "freedom of the
press established by Kerensky" was "terminated by the Bolsheviki."[27]
This is not the testimony of "capitalist newspapers," but of Socialists of
unquestionable authority and standing. The _Dielo Naroda_ was a Socialist
paper, and the volunteer venders of it, who were brutally beaten and shot
down by Red Guards, were Socialist working-men.[28] When Oskar Tokoi, the
well-known revolutionary Finnish Socialist leader, former Prime Minister of
Finland, declares that "freedom of assemblage, association, free speech,
and free press is altogether destroyed,"[29] the Bolsheviki and their
sympathizers cannot plead that they are the victims of "capitalist
misrepresentation." The attitude of the Bolshevik leaders toward the
freedom of the press has been frankly stated editorially in Pravda, their
official organ, in the following words:
The press is a most dangerous weapon in the hands of our enemies.
We will tear it from them, we will reduce it to impotence. It is
the moment for us to prepare battle. We will be inflexible in our
defense of the rights of the exploited. The struggle will be
decisive. We are going to smite the journals with fines, to shut
them up, to arrest the editors, and hold them as hostages.[30]
Is it any wonder that Paul Axelrod, who was one of the representatives of
Russia on the International Socialist Bureau prior to the outbreak of the
war, has been forced to declare that the Bolsheviki have "introduced into
Russia a system worse than Czarism, suppressing the Constituent Assembly
and the liberty of the press"?[31] Or that the beloved veteran of the
Russian Revolution, Nicholas Tchaykovsky, should lament that "the
Bolshevik usurpation is the continuation of the government by which Czarism
held the country in an iron grip"?[32]
III
Lenine, Trotzky, Zinoviev, and other Bolshevik leaders early found
themselves so much at variance with the accepted Socialist position that
they decided to change their party name. They had been Social Democrats, a
part of the Social Democratic party of Russia. Now ever since Bronterre
O'Brien first used the terms "Social Democrat" and "Social Democracy," in
1839, their meaning has been pretty well established. A Social Democrat is
one who aims to base government and industry upon democracy. Certainly,
this cannot be said to be an accurate description of the position of men
who believe in the rule of a nation of one hundred and eighty millions by a
small party of two hundred thousand or less--or even by an entire class
representing not more than six per cent. of the population--and Lenine and
his friends, recognizing the fact, decided to change the name of their
group to the _Communist party_, by which name they are now known in Russia.
Lenine frankly admits that it would be a mistake to speak of this party as
a party of democracy. He says:
The word "democracy" cannot be scientifically applied to the
Communist party. Since March, 1917, the word democracy is simply a
shackle fastened upon the revolutionary nation and preventing it
from establishing boldly, freely, and regardless of all obstacles
a new form of power; the Council of Workmen's, Soldiers' and
Peasants' Deputies, harbinger of the abolition of every form of
authority.[33]
The phrase "harbinger of the abolition of every form of authority" would
seem to indicate that Lenine's ideal is that of the old Nihilists--or of
Anarchists of the Bakuninist school. That is very far from the truth. The
phrase in question is merely a rhetorical flourish. No man has more
caustically criticized and ridiculed the Anarchists for their dream of
organization without authority than Nikolai Lenine. Moreover, his
conception of Soviet government provides for a very strong central
authority. It is a new kind of state, but a state, nevertheless, and, as we
shall discover, far more powerful than the political state with which we
are familiar, exercising far greater control over the life of the
individual. It is not to be a democratic state, but a very despotic one, a
dictatorship by a small but powerful ruling class. It was not the word
"democracy" which Lenine felt to be a "shackle upon the revolutionary
nation," but democracy itself.
The manner in which they betrayed the Constituent Assembly will prove the
complete hostility of the Bolsheviki to democratic government. In order to
excuse and justify the Bolsheviki's actions in this regard, their
supporters in this country have assiduously circulated two statements. They
are, first, that the Provisional Government purposely and with malicious
intent delayed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, hoping to stave
it off altogether; second, that such a long time had elapsed between the
elections and the convocation that when the latter date was reached the
delegates no longer represented the true feeling of the electorate.
With regard to the first of these statements, which is a repetition of a
charge made by Trotzky before the Bolshevik revolt, it is to be noted that
it is offered in justification of the Bolshevik _coup d'état_. If the
charge made were true, instead of false, as it can easily be shown to be,
it would only justify the counter-revolution if the counter-revolution
itself were made the instrument for insuring the safety of the Constituent
Assembly. But the Bolsheviki _suppressed the Constituent Assembly_. By what
process of reasoning do we reach the result that because the Provisional
Government delayed the convocation of the Constituent Assembly, which the
people desired, a counter-revolutionary movement to _suppress it
altogether_, by force of arms, was right and proper?
With regard to the second statement, which is a repetition of an argument
advanced in Russia, it should be sufficient to emphasize a few dates. The
Bolsheviki seized the power of government on November 7th and the elections
for the Constituent Assembly took place on November 25th--nearly three
weeks later. The date set by the Kerensky government for the opening of the
Constituent Assembly was December 12th and on that date some forty-odd
members put in an appearance. Recognizing that they could not begin
business until a quorum appeared, these decided to wait until at least a
quorum should be present. They did not attempt to do any work. What
happened is told in the following passages from a signed statement by 109
members--all Socialist-Revolutionists.[34]
On the appointed day and hour of the opening of the session of the
Constituent Assembly ... the delegates to the Constituent Assembly
who had arrived in Petrograd gathered at the Tavrichesky Palace.
The elected representatives of the people beheld innumerable
banners and large crowds surrounding the palace. This was
Petrograd greeting the representatives of the people. At the doors
of the palace the picture changed. There stood armed guards and at
the orders of the usurpers, the Bolsheviki, they refused to let
the delegates pass into the Tavrichesky Palace. It appeared that,
in order to enter the building, the _delegates had first to pay
respects to the Commissaire, a satellite of Lenine and Trotzky,
and there receive special permission_. The delegates would not
submit to that; elected by the people and equipped with formal
authorization, they had the right to freely enter any public
building assigned for their meeting. The delegates decided to
enter the Tavrichesky Palace without asking the new authorities,
and they succeeded in doing so. On the first day the guards did
not dare to lift their arms against the people's elected
representatives and allowed them to enter the building without
molestation.
There was no struggle, no violence, no sacrifices; the delegates
demanded that the guards respect their rights; they demanded to be
admitted, and the guards yielded.
In the Tavrichesky Palace the delegates opened their meeting; V.M.
Chernov was elected chairman. There were, altogether, about forty
delegates present. They realized that there were not enough
present to start the work of the Constituent Assembly. _It was
decided that it would be advisable to await the arrival of the
other delegates and start the work of the Constituent Assembly
only when a sufficient number were present_. Those already there
decided to meet daily at the Tavrichesky Palace in order to count
all the delegates as they arrived, and on an appointed day to
publicly announce the day and hour of the beginning of the
activities of the Constituent Assembly.
When the delegates finished their session and adjourned, the old
guards had been dismissed for their submissive attitude toward the
delegates and replaced by armed civilian followers of Lenine and
Trotzky. The latter issued an order to disband the delegates, but
there were none to be disbanded.
The following day the government of the Bolsheviki dishonestly and
basely slandered the people's representatives in their official
announcement which appeared in Pravda. That lying newspaper wrote
that the representatives of the people had forced their way into
the palace, accompanied by Junkers and the White Guards of the
bourgeoisie, that the representatives wanted to take advantage of
their small numbers and had begun the work of the Constituent
Assembly. Every one knows that this is slanderous as regards the
representatives of the people. Such lies and slanders were
resorted to by the old régime.
The aim of the slanders and the lies is clear. _The usurpers do
not want the people's representatives to have the supreme power
and therefore are preparing to disband the Constituent Assembly_.
On the 28th of November, in the evening, _having begun to arrest
members of the Constitutional-Democratic party, the Bolsheviki
violated the inviolability of the Constituent Assembly. On
December 3d a delegate to the Constituent Assembly, the
Socialist-Revolutionist, Filippovsky, who was elected by the army
on the southwestern front, was arrested_.
In accordance with their decision reached on November 28th, the
delegates gathered at the Tavrichesky Palace on November 29th and
30th. As on the first day, armed soldiers stood guard at the
entrance of the palace and would not let any one pass. The
delegates, however, insisted and were finally allowed to enter.
On the third day, scenes of brutal violence toward the people's
representatives took place at the palace. Peasants were the
unfortunate victims of this violence.
When the delegates had ended their session and all that remained
was the affixing of the signatures to the minutes, sailors forced
their way into the hall; these were headed by a Bolshevik officer,
_a former commander of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul_.
The commander demanded that the delegates disband. In reply it was
stated that the delegates would disband after they had finished
their business. Then at the order of the commander the sailors
took the delegate Ilyan, elected by the peasants of the Province
of Tambov, by the arm and dragged him to the exit. After Ilyan,
the sailors dragged out the peasant delegate from the Province of
Moscow, Bikov; then the sailors approached Maltzev, a peasant
delegate from the Province of Kostroma. He, however, shouted out
that he would rather be shot than to submit to such violence. His
courage appealed to the sailors and they stopped.
Now all the halls in the Tavrichesky Palace are locked and it is
impossible to meet there. The delegates who come to the
Tavrichesky Palace cannot even gather in the lobby, for as soon
as a group gathers, the armed hirelings of Lenine and Trotzky
disperse them. Thus, in former times, behaved the servants of the
Czar and the enemies of the people, policemen and gendarmes.
This is not the testimony of correspondents of bourgeois journals; it is
from a statement prepared at the time and signed by more than a hundred
Socialists, members of the oldest and largest Socialist party in Russia,
many of them men whose long and honorable service has endeared them to
their comrades in all lands. It is not testimony that can be impeached or
controverted. It forms part of the report of these well-known and trusted
Socialists to their comrades in Russia and elsewhere. The claim that the
elections to the Constituent Assembly were held on the basis of an obsolete
register, before the people had a chance to become acquainted with the
Bolshevist program, and that so long a time had elapsed since the elections
that the delegates could not be regarded as true representatives of the
people, was first put forward by the Bolsheviki when the Constituent
Assembly was finally convened, on January 18th. It was an absurd claim for
the Bolsheviki to make, for one of the very earliest acts of the Bolshevik
government, after the overthrow of Kerensky, was to issue a decree ordering
that the elections be held as arranged. By that act they assumed
responsibility for the elections, and could not fairly and honorably enter
the plea, later on, that the elections were not valid.
Here is the story of the struggle for the Constituent Assembly, briefly
summarized. The first Provisional Government issued a Manifesto on March
20, 1917, promising to convoke the Constituent Assembly "as soon as
possible." This promise was repeated by the Provisional Government when it
was reorganized after the resignation of Miliukov and Guchkov in the
middle of May. That the promise was sincere there can be no reasonable
doubt, for the Provisional Government at once set about creating a
commission to work out the necessary machinery and was for the election by
popular vote of delegates to the Constituent Assembly. Russia was not like
a country which had ample electoral machinery already existing; new
machinery had to be devised for the purpose. This commission was opened on
June 7, 1917; its work was undertaken with great earnestness, and completed
in a remarkably short time, with the result that on July 22d the
Provisional Government--Kerensky at its head--announced that the elections
to the Constituent Assembly would be held on September 30th, and the
convocation of the Assembly itself on the 12th of December. It was soon
found, however, that it would be physically impossible for the local
authorities all to be prepared to hold the election on the date set--it was
necessary, among other things, to first elect the local authorities which
were to arrange for the election of the delegates to the Constituent
Assembly--and so, on August 22d, Kerensky signed the following decree,
making _the one and only postponement_ of the Constituent Assembly, so far
as the Provisional Government was concerned:
Desiring to assure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly as
soon as possible, the Provisional Government designated the 30th
of September as election-day, in which case the whole burden of
making up the election lists must fall on the municipalities and
the newly elected zemstvos. _The enormous labor of holding the
elections for the local institution has taken time_. At present,
in view of the date of establishment of the local institutions, on
the basis decreed by the government--direct, general, equal, and
secret suffrage--the Provisional Government has decided:
To set aside as the day for the elections to the Constituent
Assembly the 25th of November, of the year 1917, and as the date
for the convocation of the Constituent Assembly the 12th of
December, of the year 1917.
Notwithstanding this clear and honorable record, we find Trotzky, at a
Conference of Northern Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, on
October 25th, when he well knew that arrangements for holding the
Constituent Assembly elections were in full swing, charging that Kerensky
was engaged in preventing the convocation of the Constituent Assembly! He
demanded at that time that all power should be taken from the Provisional
Government and transferred to the Soviets. These, he said, would convoke
the Assembly on the date that had been assigned, December 12th.
The Bolshevik _coup d'état_ took place, as already noted, less than three
weeks before the date set for the elections, for which every preparation
had been made by the government and the local authorities. It was at the
beginning of the campaign, and the Bolsheviki had their own candidates in
the field in many places. It was a foregone conclusion that the Constituent
Assembly brought into being by the universal suffrage would be dominated by
Socialists. There was never the slightest fear that it would be dominated
by the bourgeois parties. What followed is best told in the exact language
of a protest to the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov,
representative of the Revolutionary Socialist party, which was, be it
remembered, the largest and the oldest of the Russian Socialist parties:
The _coup d'état_ was followed by various other manifestations of
Bolshevist activity--arrests, searches, confiscation of
newspapers, ban on meetings. Bands of soldiers looted the country
houses in the suburbs of the city; a school for the children of
the people and the buildings of the Children's Holiday Settlement
were also pillaged. Bands of soldiers were forthwith sent into the
country to cause trouble there.... The bands of soldiers who were
sent into the country used not only persuasion, but also violence,
_trying to force the peasants to give their votes for the
Bolshevik candidates at the time of the elections to the
Constituent Assembly; they tore up the bulletins of the
Socialist-Revolutionists, overturned the ballot-boxes, etc_....
The inhabitants of the country proved themselves in all that
concerned the elections wide awake to the highest degree. There
were hardly any abstentions; _90 per cent. of the population took
part in the voting_. The day of the voting was kept as a solemn
feast; the priest said mass; the peasants dressed in their best
clothes; they believed that the Constituent Assembly would give
them order, laws, the land. In the Government of Saratov, out of
fourteen deputies elected, there were twelve
Socialist-Revolutionists. There were others (such as the
Government of Pensa, for example) that elected only
Socialist-Revolutionists. The Bolsheviki had the majority only in
Petrograd and Moscow and in certain units of the army. To violence
and conquest of power by force of arms the population answered by
the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the people sent to this
Assembly, not the Bolsheviki, but, by an overwhelming majority,
Socialist-Revolutionists.
Of course, this is the testimony of one who is confessedly anti-Bolshevist,
one who has suffered deep injury at the hands of the Bolsheviki of whom she
writes. For all that, her testimony cannot be ignored or laughed aside. It
has been indorsed by E. Roubanovitch, a member of the International
Socialist Bureau, and a man of the highest integrity, in the following
words: "I affirm that her sincere and matured testimony cannot be suspected
of partizanship or of dogmatic partiality against the Bolsheviki." What is
more important, however, is that the subsequent conduct of the Bolsheviki
in all matters relating to the Constituent Assembly was such as to confirm
belief in her statements.
No Bolshevik spokesman has ever yet challenged the accuracy of the
statement that an overwhelming majority of the deputies elected to the
Constituent Assembly were representatives of the Revolutionary Socialist
party. As a matter of fact, the Bolsheviki elected less than one-third of
the deputies. In the announcement of their withdrawal from the Constituent
Assembly when it assembled in January the Bolshevik members admitted that
the Socialist-Revolutionists had "obtained a majority of the Constituent
Assembly."
The attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the Constituent Assembly changed as
their electoral prospects changed. At first, believing that, as a result of
their successful _coup_, they would have the support of the great mass of
the peasants and city workers, they were vigorous in their support of the
Assembly. In the first of their "decrees" after the overthrow of the
Kerensky Cabinet, the Bolshevik "Commissaries of the People" announced that
they were to exercise complete power "until the meeting of the Constituent
Assembly," which was nothing less than a pledge that they would regard the
latter body as the supreme, ultimate authority. Three days after the revolt
Lenine, as president of the People's Commissaries, published this decree:
In the name of the Government of the Republic, elected by the
All-Russian Congress of Councils of Workmen's and Soldiers'
Delegates, with the participation of the Peasants' Delegates, the
Council of the People's Commissaries decrees:
1. That the elections to the Constituent Assembly shall be held on
November 25th, the day 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 this attitude had been maintained throughout, and had the Bolsheviki
loyally accepted the verdict of the electorate when it was given, there
could have been no complaint. But the evidence shows that their early
attitude was not maintained. Later on, as reports received from the
interior of the country showed that the masses were not flocking to their
banners, they began to assume a critical attitude toward the Constituent
Assembly. The leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary party were warning
their followers that the Bolsheviki would try to wreck the Constituent
Assembly, for which they were bitterly denounced in organs like _Pravda_
and _Izvestya_. Very soon, however, these Bolshevist organs began to
discuss the Constituent Assembly in a very critical spirit. It was
possible, they pointed out, that it would have a bourgeois majority,
treating the Socialist-Revolutionists and the Cadets as being on the same
level, equally servants of the bourgeoisie. Then appeared editorials to
show that it would not be possible to place the destinies of Russia in the
hands of such people, even though they were elected by the "unthinking
masses." Finally, when it was clear that the Socialist-Revolutionary party
had elected a majority of the members, _Pravda_ and _Izvestya_ took the
position that _the victorious people did not need a Constituent Assembly_;
that a new instrument had been created which made the old democratic method
obsolete.[35] The "new instrument" was, of course, the Bolshevist Soviet.
IV
For the moment we are not concerned with the merits or the failings of the
Soviet considered as an instrument of government. We are concerned only
with democracy and the relation of the Bolshevist method to democracy. From
this point of view, then, let us consider the facts. The Soviet was not
something new, as so many of our American drawing-room champions of
Bolshevism seem to think. The Soviet was the type of organization common to
Russia. There were Soviets of peasants, of soldiers, of teachers, of
industrial workers, of officers, of professional men, and so on. Every
class and every group in the classes had its own Soviet. The Soviet in its
simplest form is a delegate body consisting of representatives of a
particular group--a peasants' Soviet, for example. Another type, more
important, roughly corresponds to the Central Labor Union in an American
city, in that it is composed of representatives of workers of all kinds.
These delegates are, in the main, chosen by the workers in the shops and
factories and in the meetings of the unions. The anti-Bolshevist
Socialists, such as the Mensheviki and the Socialist-Revolutionists, were
not opposed to Soviets as working-class organizations. On the contrary,
they approved of them, supported them, and, generally, belonged to them.
They were opposed only to the theory that these Soviets, recruited in a
more or less haphazard manner, as such organizations must necessarily be,
were better adapted to the governing of a great country like Russia than a
legal body which received its mandate in elections based upon universal,
equal, direct, and secret suffrage. No one ever pretended that the Soviets
represented all the workers of Russia--including peasants in that term--or
even a majority of them. No one ever pretended that the Soviet, as such,
was a stable and constant factor. New Soviets were always springing up and
others dying out. Many existed only in name, on paper. _There never has
been an accurate list of the Soviets existing in Russia_. Many lists have
been made, but always by the time they could be tabulated and published
there have been many changes. For these and other reasons which will
suggest themselves to the mind of any thoughtful reader, many of the
leaders of the revolutionary movement in Russia have doubted the value of
the Soviet as a _unit of government, while highly valuing it as a unit of
working-class organization and struggle_.
Back of all the strife between the Bolsheviki centered around the Soviets
and the Socialist-Revolutionists and Mensheviki, centered around the
Constituent Assembly, was a greater fact than any we have been discussing,
however. The Bolsheviki with their doctrinaire Marxism had carried the
doctrine of the class struggle to such extreme lengths that they virtually
placed the great mass of the peasants with the bourgeoisie. The Revolution
must be controlled by the proletariat, they argued. The control of the
government and of industry by the people, which was the slogan of the old
democracy, will not do, for the term "the people" includes bourgeois
elements. Even if it is narrowed by excluding the great capitalists and
landowners, still it embraces the lesser capitalists, small landowners,
shopkeepers, and the petty bourgeoisie in general. These elements weaken
the militancy of the proletariat. What is needed is the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Now, only a very small part of the peasantry, the very poor
peasants, can be safely linked to the proletariat--and even these must be
carefully watched. It was a phase of the old and familiar conflict between
agrarian and industrial groups in the Socialist movement. It is not very
many years since the Socialist party of America was convulsed by a similar
discussion. Could the farmer ever be a genuine and sincere and trustworthy
Socialist? The question was asked in the party papers in all seriousness,
and in one or two state organizations measures were taken to limit the
number of farmers entering the party, so that at all times there might be
the certainty of a preponderance of proletarian over farmer votes.
Similar distrust, only upon a much bigger scale, explains the fight for and
against the Constituent Assembly. Lenine and his followers distrusted the
peasants as a class whose interests were akin to the class of small
property-owners. He would only unite with the poor, propertyless peasants.
The leaders of the peasantry, on the other hand, supported by the more
liberal Marxians, would expand the meaning of the term "working class" and
embrace within its meaning all the peasants as well as all city workers,
most of the professional classes, and so on. We can get some idea of this
strife from a criticism which Lenine directs against the Mensheviki:
In its class composition this party is not Socialist at all. It
does not represent the toiling masses. It represents fairly
prosperous peasants and working-men, petty traders, many small and
some even fairly large capitalists, and a certain number of real
but gullible proletarians who have been caught in the bourgeois
net.[36]
It is clear from this criticism that Lenine does not believe that a genuine
Socialist party--and, presumably, therefore, the same must apply to a
Socialist government--can represent "fairly prosperous peasants and
working-men." We now know how to appraise the Soviet government. The
constitution of Russia under the rule of the Bolsheviki is required by law
to be posted in all public places in Russia. In Article II, Chapter V,
paragraph 9, of this document it is set forth that "the Constitution of the
Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic involves, in view of the
present transition period, the establishment of a dictatorship of the urban
and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry in the form of a powerful
All-Russian Soviet authority." Attention is called to this passage here,
not for the sake of pointing out the obvious need for some exact definition
of the loose expression, "the poorest peasantry," nor for the sake of any
captious criticism, but solely to point out the important fact that Lenine
only admits a part of the peasantry--the poorest--to share in the
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Turning to another part of the same important document--Article III,
Chapter VI, Section A, paragraph 25--we find the basis of representation in
the All-Russian Congress of Soviets stated. There are representatives of
town Soviets and representatives of provincial congresses of Soviets. The
former represent the industrial workers; the latter represent the peasants
almost exclusively. It is important, therefore, to note that there is one
delegate for every twenty-five thousand city voters and one for every one
hundred and twenty-five thousand peasant voters! In Section B of the same
Article, Chapter X, paragraph 53, we find the same discrimination: it takes
five peasants' votes to equal the vote of one city voter; it was this
general attitude of the Bolsheviki toward the peasants, dividing them into
classes and treating the great majority of them as petty, rural
bourgeoisie, which roused the resentment of the peasants' leaders. They
naturally insisted that the peasants constituted a distinct class,
co-operating with the proletariat, not to be ruled by it. Even Marie
Spiridonova, who at first joined with the Bolsheviki, was compelled, later
on, to assert this point of view.
It is easy to understand the distrust of the Bolsheviki by the Socialist
parties and groups which represented the peasants. The latter class
constituted more than 85 per cent. of the population. Moreover, it had
furnished the great majority of the fighters in the revolutionary movement.
Its leaders and spokesmen resented the idea that they were to be dictated
to and controlled by a minority, which was, as Lenine himself admitted, not
materially more numerous than the old ruling class of landowners had been.
They wanted a democratic governmental system, free from class rule, while
the Bolsheviki wanted class rule. Generalizations are proverbially
perilous, and should be very cautiously made and applied to great currents
of thought and of life. But in a broad sense we may fairly say that the
Socialism of the Socialist-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, the Socialism
of Kerensky and the men who were the majority of the Constituent Assembly,
was the product of Russian life and Russian economic development, while the
Socialism that the Bolsheviki tried by force of arms to impose upon Russia
was as un-Russian as it could be. The Bolshevist conception of Socialism
had its origin in Marxian theory. Both Marx and Engels freely predicted the
setting up of "a dictatorship of the proletariat"--the phrase which the
Bolsheviki have made their own.
Yet, the Bolsheviki are not Marxians. Their Socialism is as little Marxian
as Russian. When Marx and Engels forecasted the establishment of
proletarian dictatorship it was part of their theorem that economic
evolution would have reduced practically all the masses to a proletarian
state; that industrial and commercial concentration would have reached such
a stage of development that there would be on the one side a small class
of owners, and, on the other side, the proletariat. There would be, they
believed, no middle class. The disappearance of the middle class was, for
them and for their followers, a development absolutely certain to take
place. They saw the same process going on with the same result in
agriculture. It might be less rapid in its progress, but not one whit less
certain. It was only as the inevitable climax to this evolution that they
believed the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be achieved. In other
words, the proletariat would be composed of the overwhelming majority of
the body politic and social. That is very different from the Bolshevist
attempt to set up the dictatorship of the proletariat in a land where more
than 85 per cent, of the people are peasants; where industrial development
is behind the rest of the world, and where dictatorship of the proletariat
means the domination of more than one hundred and eighty millions of people
by two hundred thousand "proletarians and the poorest peasants," according
to Lenine's statement, or by six per cent. of the population _if we assume
the entire proletariat to be united in the dictatorship!_
V
At the time of the disturbances which took place in Petrograd in December,
over the delay in holding the Constituent Assembly, the Bolshevik
government announced that the Constituante would be permitted to convene on
January 18th, provided that not less than four hundred delegates were in
attendance. Accordingly, the defenders of the Constituent Assembly arranged
for a great demonstration to take place on that day in honor of the event.
It was also intended to be a warning to the Bolsheviki not to try to
further interfere with the Constituante. An earnest but entirely peaceful
mass of people paraded with flags and banners and signs containing such
inscriptions as "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!" "Land and Liberty,"
"Long Live the Constituent Assembly," and many others. They set out from
different parts of the city to unite at the Field of Mars and march to the
Taurida Palace to protest against any interference with the Constituent
Assembly. As they neared the Taurida Palace they were confronted by Red
Guards, who, without any preliminary warning or any effort at persuasion,
fired into the crowd. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive
Committee of the Soviet of Peasants' Delegates, the Siberian peasant
Logvinov, part of whose head was shot away by an explosive bullet. Another
victim was the militant Socialist-Revolutionist Gorbatchevskaia. Several
students and a number of workmen were also killed. Similar massacres
occurred at the same time in other parts of the city. Other processions
wending their way toward the meeting-place were fired into. Altogether one
hundred persons were either killed or very seriously wounded by the Red
Guards, who said that they had received orders "not to spare the
cartridges." Similar demonstrations were held in Moscow and other cities
and were similarly treated by the Red Guards. In Moscow especially the loss
of life was great. Yet the Bolshevist organs passed these tragic events
over in complete silence. They did not mention the massacres, nor did they
mention the great demonstration at the funeral of the victims, four days
later.
When the Constituent Assembly was formally opened, on January 18th, it was
well known on every hand that the Bolshevik government would use force to
destroy it if the deputies refused to do exactly as they were told. The
corridors were filled with armed soldiers and sailors, ready for action.
The Lenine-Trotzky Ministry had summoned an extraordinary Congress of
Soviets to meet in Petrograd at the same time, and it was well understood
that they were determined to erect this Soviet Congress into the supreme
legislative power. If the Constituent Assembly would consent to this, so
much the better, of course. In that case there would be a valuable legal
sanction, the sanction of a democratically elected body expressly charged
with the task of determining the form and manner of government for Free
Russia. Should the Constituent Assembly not be willing, there was an
opportunity for another _coup d'état_.
In precisely the same way as the Ministry during the last years of Czarism
would lay before the Duma certain documents and demand that they be
approved, so the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets--the Bolshevik
power--demanded that the Constituent Assembly meekly assent to a document
prepared for it in advance. It was at once a test and a challenge; if the
Assembly was willing to accept orders from the Soviet authority and content
itself with rubber-stamping the decrees of the latter, as ordered, it could
be permitted to go on--at least for a time. At the head of the Constituent
Assembly, as president, the deputies elected Victor Chernov, who had been
Minister of Agriculture under Kerensky. At the head of the Bolshevik
faction was Sverdlov, chairman of the Executive Committee of the Soviets.
He it was who opened the fight, demanding that the following declaration be
adopted by the Constituante as the basis of a Constitution for Russia:
DECLARATION OF THE RIGHT'S OF THE TOILING AND EXPLOITED
PEOPLE
I
1. Russia is to be declared a republic of the workers', soldiers'
and peasants' Soviets. All power in the cities and in the country
belongs to the Soviets.
2. The Russian Soviet Republic is based on the free federation of
free peoples, on the federation of national Soviet republics.
II
Assuming as its duty the destruction of all exploitation of the
workers, the complete abolition of the class system of society,
and the placing of society upon a socialistic basis, and the
ultimate bringing about of victory for Socialism in every country,
the Constituent Assembly further decides:
1. That the socialization of land be realized, private ownership
of land be abolished, all the land be proclaimed common property
of the people and turned over to the toiling masses without
compensation on the basis of equal right to the use of land.
All forests, mines, and waters which are of social importance, as
well as all living and other forms of property, and all
agricultural enterprises, are declared national property.
2. To confirm the decree of the Soviets concerning the inspection
of working conditions, the highest department of national economy,
which is the first step in achieving the ownership by the Soviets
of the factories, mines, railroads, and means of production and
transportation.
3. To confirm the decree of the Soviets transferring all banks to
the ownership of the Soviet Republic, as one of the steps in the
freeing of the toiling masses from the yoke of capitalism.
4. To enforce general compulsory labor, in order to destroy the
class of parasites, and to reorganize the economic life. In order
to make the power of the toiling masses secure and to prevent the
restoration of the rule of the exploiters, the toiling masses will
be armed and a Red Guard composed of workers and peasants formed,
and the exploiting classes shall be disarmed.
III
1. Declaring its firm determination to make society free from the
chaos of capitalism and imperialism, which has drenched the
country in blood in this most criminal war of all wars, the
Constituent Assembly accepts completely the policy of the Soviets,
whose duty it is to publish all secret treaties, to organize the
most extensive fraternization between the workers and peasants of
warring armies, and by revolutionary methods to bring about a
democratic peace among the belligerent nations without annexations
and indemnities, on the basis of the free self-determination of
nations--at any price.
2. For this purpose the Constituent Assembly declares its complete
separation from the brutal policy of the bourgeoisie, which
furthers the well-being of the exploiters in a few selected
nations by enslaving hundreds of millions of the toiling peoples
of the colonies and the small nations generally.
The Constituent Assembly accepts the policy of the Council of
People's Commissars in giving complete independence to Finland, in
beginning the withdrawal of troops from Persia, and in declaring
for Armenia the right of self-determination.
A blow at international financial capital is the Soviet decree
which annuls foreign loans made by the governments of the Czar,
the landowners and the bourgeoisie. The Soviet government is to
continue firmly on this road until the final victory from the yoke
of capitalism is won through international workers' revolt.
As the Constituent Assembly was elected on the basis of lists of
candidates nominated before the November Revolution, when the
people as a whole could not yet rise against their exploiters, and
did not know how powerful would be the strength of the exploiters
in defending their privileges, and had not yet begun to create a
Socialist society, the Constituent Assembly considers it, even
from a formal point of view, unjust to oppose the Soviet power.
The Constituent Assembly is of the opinion that at this moment, in
the decisive hour of the struggle of the people against their
exploiters, the exploiters must not have a seat in any government
organization or institution. The power completely and without
exception belongs to the people and its authorized
representatives--the workers', soldiers' and peasants' Soviets.
Supporting the Soviet rule and accepting the orders of the Council
of People's Commissars, the Constituent Assembly acknowledges its
duty to outline a form for the reorganization of society.
Striving at the same time to organize a free and voluntary, and
thereby also a complete and strong, union among the toiling
classes of all the Russian nations, the Constituent Assembly
limits itself to outlining the basis of the federation of Russian
Soviet Republics, leaving to the people, to the workers and
soldiers, to decide for themselves, in their own Soviet meetings,
if they are willing, and on what conditions they prefer, to join
the federated government and other federations of Soviet
enterprise. These general principles are to be published without
delay, and the official representatives of the Soviets are
required to read them at the opening of the Constituent Assembly.
The demand for the adoption of this declaration gave rise to a long and
stormy debate. The leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionists and the
Mensheviki stoutly contended that the adoption of the declaration would be
virtually an abdication of the task for which the Constituent Assembly had
been elected by the people, and, therefore, a betrayal of trust. They could
not admit the impudent claim that an election held in November, based upon
universal suffrage, on lists made up as recently as September, could in
January be set aside as being "obsolete" and "unrepresentative." That a
majority of the Bolshevik candidates put forward had been defeated,
nullified, they argued, the claim of the Bolsheviki that the fact that the
candidates had all been nominated before the November insurrection should
be regarded as reason for acknowledging the Bolshevik Soviet as superior to
the Constituent Assembly. They insisted upon the point, which the Bolshevik
spokesmen did not attempt to controvert, that the Constituent Assembly
represented the votes of many millions of men and women,[37] while the
total actual membership represented by the Soviet power did not at the time
number one hundred thousand!
As might have been expected, the proposal to adopt the declaration
submitted to the Constituent Assembly in this arrogant fashion was rejected
by an enormous majority. The Bolshevik members, who had tried to make the
session a farce, thereupon withdrew after submitting a statement in which
they charged the Constituent Assembly with being a counter-revolutionary
body, and the Revolutionary-Socialist party with being a traitorous party
"directing the fight of the bourgeoisie against the workers' revolution."
The statement said that the Bolshevik members withdrew "in order to permit
the Soviet power to determine what relations it would hold with the
counter-revolutionary section of the Constituent Assembly"--a threat which
needed no interpretation.
After the withdrawal of the Bolshevik members, the majority very quickly
adopted a declaration which had been carefully prepared by the
Socialist-Revolutionists during the weeks which had elapsed since the
elections in the preliminary conferences which had been held for that
purpose. The declaration read as follows:
RUSSIA'S FORM OF GOVERNMENT
In the name of the peoples who compose the Russian state, the
All-Russian Constituent Assembly proclaims the Russian State to be
the Russian Democratic Federated Republic, uniting indissolubly
into one whole the peoples and territories which are sovereign
within the limits prescribed by the Federal Constitution.
LAWS REGARDING LAND OWNERSHIP
1. _The right to privately own land within the boundaries of the
Russian Republic is hereby abolished forever._
2. All land within the boundaries of the Russian Republic, with
all mines, forests, and waters, is hereby declared the property of
the nation.
3. The republic has the right to control all land, with all the
mines, forests, and waters thereof, through the central and local
administration, in accordance with the regulation provided by the
present law.
4. The autonomous provinces of the Russian Republic have title to
land on the basis of the present law and in accordance with the
Federal Constitution.
5. The tasks of the central and local governments as regards the
use of lands, mines, forests, and waters are:
a. The creation of conditions conducive to the best possible
utilization of the country's natural resources and the highest
possible development of its productive forces.
b. The fair distribution of all natural wealth among the people.
6. The rights of individuals and institutions to land, mines,
forests, and waters are restricted merely to utilization by said
individuals and institutions.
7. The use of all mines, forests, land, and waters is free to all
citizens of the Russian Republic, regardless of nationality or
creed. This includes all unions of citizens, also governmental and
public institutions.
8. The right to use the land is to be acquired and discontinued on
the basis prescribed by this fundamental law.
9. _All titles to land at present held by the individuals,
associations, and institutions are abolished in so far as they
contradict this law._
10. All land, mines, forests, waters, at present owned by and
otherwise in the possession of individuals, associations, and
institutions, _are confiscated without compensation for the loss
incurred._
DEMOCRATIC PEACE
In the name of the peoples of the Russian Republic, the
All-Russian Constituent Assembly expresses the firm will of the
people to _immediately discontinue the war_ and conclude a just
and general peace, appeals to the Allied countries proposing to
define jointly the exact terms of the democratic peace acceptable
to all the belligerent nations, in order to present these terms,
in behalf of the Allies, to the governments fighting against the
Russian Republic and her allies.
The Constituent Assembly firmly believes that the attempts of the
peoples of Russia to end the disastrous war will meet with a
unanimous response on the part of the peoples and the governments
of the Allied countries, and that by common efforts a speedy peace
will be attained, which will safeguard the well-being and dignity
of all the belligerent countries.
The Constituent Assembly resolves to elect from its midst an
authorized delegation which will carry on negotiations with the
representatives of the Allied countries and which will present the
appeal to jointly formulate terms upon which a speedy termination
of the war will be possible, as well as for the purpose of
carrying out the decisions of the Constituent Assembly regarding
the question of peace negotiations with the countries fighting
against us.
This delegation, which is to be under the guidance of the
Constituent Assembly, is to immediately start fulfilling the
duties imposed upon it.
Expressing, in the name of the peoples of Russia, its regret that
the negotiations with Germany, which were started without
preliminary agreement with the Allied countries, have assumed the
character of negotiations for a separate peace, the Constituent
Assembly, in the name of the peoples of the Federated Republic,
_while continuing the armistice, accepts the further carrying on
of the negotiations with the countries warring against us_ in
order to work toward a general democratic peace which shall be in
accordance "with the people's will and protect Russia's
interests."
VI
Immediately following the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly a body of
Red Guards shot the two Constitutional Democrats, Kokoshkin and Shingariev,
who were at the time confined as prisoners who were ill in the Naval
Hospital. The reason for the brutal murder of these men was that they were
bourgeoisie and, therefore, enemies of the working class! It is only just
to add that the foul deed was immediately condemned by the Bolshevik
government and by the Soviet of Petrograd. "The working class will never
approve of any outrages upon our prisoners, whatever may have been their
political offense against the people and their Revolution," the latter body
declared, in a resolution on the subject of the assassinations. Two days
after the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly twenty-three
Socialist-Revolutionist members of that body, assembled at the office of
their party, were arrested, and the premises occupied by Red Guards, the
procedure being exactly as it used to be in the old days under the Czar.
There is a relentless logic of life and action from which there can be no
escape. Czarism was a product of that inexorable process. All its
oppression and brutality proceeded by an inevitable and irresistible
sequence from the first determination and effort to realize the principle
of autocracy. Any dictatorship, whether of a single man, a group or class,
must rest ultimately upon oppressive and coercive force. Believing that the
means would be justified by the end, Lenine and Trotzky and their
associates had suppressed the Constituent Assembly, claiming that
parliamentary government, based upon the equal and free suffrage of all
classes, was, during the transition period, dangerous to the proletariat;
that in its stead a new type of government must be established--government
by associations of wage-earners, soldiers, and peasants, called Soviets.
But what if among these there should develop a purpose contrary to the
purpose of the Bolsheviki? Would men who, starting out with a belief in the
Constituante, and as its champions, used force to destroy and suppress it
the moment it became evident that its purpose was not their purpose,
hesitate to suppress and destroy any Soviet movement which adopted
policies contrary to their own? What assurance could there be, once their
point of view, their initial principle, was granted, that the freedom
denied to the Constituante would be assured to the Soviets? In the very
nature of the case there could be no such assurance. However honest and
sincere the Bolsheviki themselves might be in their belief that there would
be such assurance, there could in fact be none, for the logic of life is
stronger than any human will.
As was inevitable, the Bolsheviki soon found themselves in the position of
suppressing Soviets which they could not control as freely and in the same
manner as they had suppressed the Constituent Assembly. When, for example,
the soldiers of the Preobrajenski Regiment--the very men who helped the
Bolsheviki into power--became dissatisfied and organized, publishing their
own organ, _The Soldier's Cloak_, the paper was confiscated and the
organization suppressed.[38] The forcible suppression of Soviets was
common. The Central Executive Committee of the National Soviet of Peasants'
Delegates, together with the old Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates (who had never acknowledged the
October elections), convoked an extraordinary assembly of Soviets on
January 8th, the same date as that on which the Bolshevik Congress of
Soviets was convoked. Circumstances compelled the opening to be deferred
until two days later, the 10th. This conference, called the Third
All-Russian Congress of Peasants' Soviets, was suppressed by force, many of
the 359 delegates and all the members of the Executive Committee being
arrested. The following extract from a declaration of protest addressed by
the outraged peasants to the Congress of Soviets of Workmen, Soldiers, and
Peasants convoked by the Bolshevik government tells the story:
As soon as the Congress was opened, sailors and Red Guards, armed
with guns and hand-grenades, broke into the premises (11
Kirillovskaia Street), surrounded the house, poured into the
corridors and the session hall, and ordered all persons to leave.
"In whose name do you order us, who are Delegates to the Peasants'
Congress of All-Russia, to disperse?" asked the peasants.
"In the name of the Baltic fleet," the sailor's replied.
The peasants refused; cries of protest were raised. One by one the
peasants ascended the tribune to stigmatize the Bolsheviki in
speeches full of indignation, and to express the hopes that they
placed in the Constituent Assembly....
This session of the Congress presented a strange spectacle:
disturbed by men who confessed that they did not know why they
were there, the peasants sang revolutionary songs; the sailors,
armed with guns and grenades, joined them. Then the peasants knelt
down to sing a funeral hymn to the memory of Logvinov, whose
coffin was even yesterday within the room. The soldiers, lowering
their guns, knelt down also.
The Bolshevik authorities became excited; they did not expect such
a turn of events. "Enough said," declared the chiefs; "we have
come not to speak, but to act. If they do not want to go to
Smolny, let them get out of here." And they set themselves to the
task.
In groups of five the peasants were conducted down-stairs,
trampled upon, and, on their refusal to go to Smolny, pushed out
of doors during the night in the midst of the enormous city of
which they knew nothing.
Members of the Executive Committee were arrested,[39] the premises
occupied by sailors and Red Guards, the objects found therein
stolen.
The peasants found shelter in the homes of the inhabitants of
Petrograd, who, indignant, offered them hospitality. A certain
number were lodged in the barracks of the Preobrajenski Regiment.
The sailors, who but a few minutes before had sung a funeral hymn
to Logvinov, and wept when they saw that they had understood
nothing, now became the docile executioners of the orders of the
Bolsheviki. And when they were asked, "Why do you do this?" they
answered, as in the time, still recent, of Czarism: "It is the
order. No need to talk."[40]
We do not need to rely upon the testimony of witnesses belonging to the
Revolutionary Socialist party, the Mensheviki, or other factions unfriendly
to the Bolsheviki. However trustworthy such testimony may be, and however
well corroborated, we cannot expect it to be convincing to those who pin
their faith to the Bolsheviki. Such people will believe only what the
Bolsheviki themselves say about Bolshevism. It is well, therefore, that we
can supplement the testimony already given by equally definite and direct
testimony from official Bolshevist sources to the same effect. From the
official organs of the Bolsheviki it can be shown that the Bolshevik
authorities suppressed Soviet after Soviet; that when they found that
Soviets were controlled by Socialists who belonged to other factions they
dissolved them and ordered new elections, refusing to permit the free
choice of the members to be expressed in selecting their officers.
The Bolsheviki did this, it should be remembered, not merely in cases where
Mensheviki or Socialist-Revolutionists were in the majority, but
also in cases where the majority consisted of members of the
Socialist-Revolutionary party of the Left--the faction which had united
with the Bolsheviki in suppressing the Constituante. Their union with the
Bolsheviki was from the first a compromise, based upon the political
opportunism of both sides. The Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left did not
believe in the Bolshevik theories or program, but they wanted the political
assistance of the Bolsheviki. The latter did not believe in the theories or
program of the Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left, but they wanted their
political support. The union could not long endure; the differences were
too deeply rooted. Before very long the Bolsheviki were fighting their
former allies and the Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left, like Marie
Spiridonova, for example, were fighting the Bolsheviki. At Kazan, where
Lenine went to school, the Soviet was dissolved because it was controlled
by Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left, former allies, now hostile to the
Bolsheviki. Here are two paragraphs from _Izvestya_, one of the Bolshevist
official organs:
KAZAN, _July 26th. As the important offices in the Soviet
were occupied by Socialist-Revolutionists of the Left, the
Extraordinary Commission has dissolved the Provisional Soviet. The
governmental power is now represented by a Revolutionary
Committee. (Izvestya, July 28, 1918.)_
KAZAN, _August 1_. The state of mind of the workmen is
revolutionary. _If the Mensheviki dare to carry on their
propaganda, death menaces them. (Idem, August 3.)_
And here is confirmation from another official organ of the Bolsheviki,
_Pravda_:
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. (Pravda, August 6, 1918.)_
As early as April, 1918, the Soviet at Jaroslav was dissolved by the
Bolshevik authorities and new elections ordered.[41] In these elections
the Mensheviki and the Socialist-Revolutionists everywhere gained an
absolute majority.[42] The population here wanted the Constituent Assembly
and they wanted Russia to fight on with the Allies. Attempts to suppress
this majority led to insurrection, which the Bolsheviki crushed in the most
brutal manner, and when the people, overpowered and helpless, sought to
make peace, the Bolsheviki only _increased the artillery fire_! Here is an
"Official Bulletin," published in _Izvestya_, July 21, 1918:
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._
_Izvestya_ published, on July 25th, a Bolshevist military proclamation
addressed to the inhabitants of Jaroslav concerning the insurrection which
originally arose from the suppression of the Soviet and other popular
assemblages:
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._
Next day, July 26th, _Izvestya_ published the information that "after
minute questionings and full inquiry" a special commission appointed to
inquire into the events relating to the insurrection at Jaroslav had listed
350 persons as having "taken an active part in the insurrection and had
relations with the Czecho-Slovaks," and that by order of the commissioners
the whole band of 350 had been shot!
It is needless to multiply the illustrations of brutal oppression--of men
and women arrested and imprisoned for no other crime than that of engaging
in propaganda in favor of government by universal suffrage; of newspapers
confiscated and suppressed; of meetings banned and Soviets dissolved
because the members' "state of mind" did not please the Bolsheviki. Maxim
Gorky declared in his _Novya Zhizn_ that there had been "ten thousand
lynchings." Upon what authority Gorky--who was inclined to sympathize with
the Bolsheviki, and who even accepted office under them--based that
statement is not known. Probably it is an exaggeration. One thing, however,
is quite certain, namely, that a reign of terror surpassing the worst days
of the old régime was inflicted upon unhappy Russia by the Bolsheviki. At
the very beginning of the Bolshevik régime Trotzky laughed to scorn all the
protests against violence, threatening that resort would be had to the
guillotine. Speaking to the opponents of the Bolshevik policy in the
Petrograd Soviet, he said:
"You are perturbed by the mild terror we are applying against our class
enemies, but know that not later than 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."
That threat was not literally carried out, but there was a near approach to
it when public hangings for civil offenses were established. For
reintroducing the death penalty into the army as a means of putting an end
to treason and the brutal murder of officers by rebellious soldiers, the
Bolsheviki excoriated Kerensky. _Yet they themselves introduced hanging and
flogging in public for petty civil crimes!_ The death penalty was never
inflicted for civil crimes under the late Czar. It was never inflicted for
political offenses. Only rarely was it inflicted for murder. It remained
for a so-called "Socialist" government to resort to such savagery as we
find described in the following extract from the recognized official organ
of the Bolshevik government:
Two village robbers were condemned to death. All the people of Semenovskaia
and the surrounding communes were invited to the ceremony. On July 6th, at
midday, a great crowd of interested spectators arrived at the village of
Loupia. The organizers of the execution gave to each of the bystanders the
opportunity of flogging the condemned to obtain from them supplementary
confessions. The number of blows was unlimited. Then a vote of the
spectators was taken as to the method of execution. The majority was for
hanging. In order that the spectacle could be easily seen, the spectators
were ranged in three ranks--the first row sat down, the second rested on
the knee, and the third stood up.[43]
The Bolshevik government created an All-Russian Extraordinary Commission,
which in turn created Provincial and District Extraordinary Commissions.
These bodies--the local not less than the national--were empowered to make
arrests and even decree and carry out capital sentences. There was no
appeal from their decisions; they were simply required to _report
afterward_! Only members of the Bolshevik party were immune from this
terror. Alminsky, a Bolshevist writer of note, felt called upon to protest
against this hideous travesty of democratic justice, and wrote in
_Pravda_:
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._[44]
VII
While in some respects, such as this terrible savagery, Bolshevism has
out-Heroded Herod and surpassed the régime of the Romanovs in cruel
oppression, upon the whole its methods have been very like that of the
latter. There is really not much to choose between the ways of Stolypin and
Von Plehve and those of the Lenine-Trotzky rule. The methods employed have
been very similar and in not a few instances the same men who acted as the
agents of espionage and tyranny for the Czar have served the Bolsheviki in
the same capacity. Just as under Czarism there was alliance with the Black
Hundreds and with all sorts of corrupt and vicious criminal agents, so we
find the same phenomenon recurring under the Bolsheviki. The time has not
yet arrived for the compilation of the full record of Bolshevism in this
particular, but enough is known to justify the charge here made. That
agents-provocateurs, spies, informers, police agents, and pogrom-makers
formerly in the service of the Czar have been given positions of trust and
honor by Lenine and Trotzky unfortunately admits of no doubt whatever.
It was stated at a meeting of Russians held in Paris in the summer of 1917
that one of the first Russian regiments which refused to obey orders to
advance "contained 120 former political or civil police agents out of 181
refractory soldiers." During the Kerensky régime, at the time when Lenine
was carrying on his propaganda through _Pravda_,[45] Vladimir Bourtzev
exposed three notorious agents of the old police terror, provocateurs, who
were working on the paper. In August, 1917, the Jewish Conjoint Committee
in London published a long telegram from the representative of the Jewish
Committee in Petrograd, calling attention to the fact that Lenine's party
was working in tacit agreement with the Black Hundreds. The telegram is
here given in full:
Extreme Russian reactionaries have allied themselves closely with
extreme revolutionaries, and Black Hundreds have entered into
tacit coalition with the Lenine party. In the army the former
agents and detectives of the political police carry on ardent
campaign for defeat, and in the rear the former
agents-provocateurs prepare and direct endless troubles.
The motives of this policy on the part of the reactionaries are
clear. It is the direct road to a counter-revolution. The
troubles, the insurrections, and shocking disorders which follow
provoke disgust at the Revolution, while the military defeats
prepare the ground for an intervention of the old friend of the
Russian Black Hundreds, William II, the counter-revolutionaries
work systematically for the defeat of the Russian armies,
sometimes openly, cynically.
Thus in their press and proclamations they go so far as to throw
the whole responsibility for the war and for the obstacles placed
in the way of a peace with Germany on the Jews. It is these
"diabolical Jews," they say, who prevent the conclusion of peace
and insist on the continuation of the war, because they desire to
ruin Russia. Proclamations in this sense have been found, together
with a voluminous anti-Semitic literature, in the offices of the
party of Lenine Bolsheviki (Maximalists), and particularly at the
headquarters of the extreme revolutionaries, Château
Knheshinskaja. Salutations. BLANK.
That the leaders of the Bolsheviki, particularly Lenine and Trotzky, ever
entered into any "agreement" with the Black Hundreds, or took any part in
the anti-Semitic campaign referred to, is highly improbable. Unless and
until it is supported by ample evidence of a competent nature, we shall be
justified in refusing to believe anything of the sort. It is, however,
quite probable that provocateurs worming their way into Lenine's and
Trotzky's good graces tried to use the Bolshevik agitation as a cover for
their own nefarious work. As we have seen already, Lenine had previously
been imposed upon by a notorious secret police agent, Malinovsky. But the
open association of the Bolsheviki with men who played a despicable rôle
under the old régime is not to be denied. The simple-minded reader of
Bolshevist literature who believes that the Bolshevik government, whatever
its failings, has the merit of being a government by real working-men and
working-women, needs to be enlightened. Not only are Lenine and Trotzky not
of the proletariat themselves, but they have associated with themselves
men whose lives have been spent, not as workers, not even as simple
bourgeoisie, but as servants of the terror-system of the Czar. They have
associated with themselves, too, some of the most corrupt criminals in
Russia. Here are a few of them:
Professor Kobozev, of Riga, joined the Bolsheviki and was active as a
delegate to the Municipal Council of Petrograd. According to the
information possessed by the Russian revolutionary leaders, this Professor
Kobozev used to be a police spy, his special job being to make reports to
the police concerning the political opinions and actions of students and
faculty members. One of the very first men released from prison by the
Bolsheviki was one Doctor Doubrovine, who had been a leader of the Black
Hundreds, an organizer of many pogroms. He became an active Bolshevik.
Kamenev, the Bolshevik leader, friend of Lenine, is a journalist. He was
formerly a member of the old Social Democratic party. Soon after the war
broke out he was arrested and behaved so badly that he was censured by his
party. Early in the Revolution of 1917 he was accused of serving the secret
police at Kiev. Bonno Brouevitch, Military Councilor to the Bolshevik
government, was a well-known anti-Semite who had been dismissed from his
military office on two occasions, once by the Czar's government and once by
the Provisional Government. General Komisarov, another of Lenine's trusted
military officials and advisers, was formerly a chief official of the
Czar's secret police, known for his terrible persecution of the
revolutionists. Accused of high treason by the Provisional Government, he
fled, but returned and joined the Lenine-Trotzky forces. Prince Andronikov,
associate of Rasputin; (Lenine's "My friend, the Prince"); Orlov, police
agent and "denouncer" and secretary of the infamous Protopopov; Postnikov,
convicted and imprisoned as a German spy in 1910; Lepinsky, formerly in the
Czar's secret police; and Gualkine, friend of the unspeakable Rasputin, are
some of the other men who have been closely identified with the
"proletarian régime" of the Bolsheviki.[46] The man they released from
prison and placed in the important position of Military Commander of
Petrograd was Muraviev, who had been chief of the Czar's police and was
regarded by even the moderate members of the Provisional Government, both
under Lvov and Kerensky, as a dangerous reactionary.[47] Karl Radek, the
Bohemian, a notorious leader of the Russian Bolsheviki, who undertook to
stir up the German workers and direct the Spartacide revolt, was, according
to _Justice_, expelled from the German Social Democratic party before the
war as a thief and a police spy.[48] How shall we justify men calling
themselves Socialists and proletarian revolutionists, who ally themselves
with such men as these, but imprison, harry, and abuse such men and women
as Bourtzev, Kropotkin, Plechanov, Breshkovskaya, Tchaykovsky, Spiridonova,
Agounov, Larokine, Avksentiev, and many other Socialists like them?
In surveying the fight of the Bolsheviki to establish their rule it is
impossible to fail to observe that their chief animus has been directed
against other Socialists, rather than against members of the reactionary
parties. That this has been the fact they do not themselves deny. For
example, the "People's Commissary of Justice," G.I. Oppokov, better known
as "Lomov," declared in an interview in January, 1918: "Our chief enemies
are not the Cadets. Our most irreconcilable opponents are the Moderate
Socialists. This explains the arrests of Socialists and the closing down of
Socialist newspapers. Such measures of repression are, however, only
temporary."[49] And in the Soviet at Petrograd, July 30, 1918,
according to _Pravda_, Lachevitch, one of the delegates, said: "The
Socialist-Revolutionists of the Right and the Mensheviki are more dangerous
for the government of the Soviets than the bourgeoisie. But these enemies
are not yet exterminated and can move about freely. The proletariat
must act. We ought, once for all, to rid ourselves of the
Socialist-Revolutionists of the Right and of the Mensheviki."
In this summary of the Bolsheviki war against democracy, it will be
observed, no attempt has been made to gather all the lurid and fantastic
stories which have been published by sensational journalists. The testimony
comes from Socialist sources of the utmost reliability, much of it from
official Bolshevist sources. The system of oppression it describes is twin
brother to that which existed under the Romanovs, to end which hundreds of
thousands of the noblest and best of our humankind gave up their lives.
Under the banner of Social Democracy a tyranny has been established as
infamous as anything in the annals of autocracy.
"_O Liberty, what monstrous crimes are committed in thy great
name!_"