Chapter VI: Part I: No. 3 (6)

Article 22. Each of the contracting parties concedes amnesty from
penalties to the subjects of the other party who are prisoners of
war for all criminal acts committed by them and further to all
civilian interned or deported subjects of the other party for all
punishable acts committed by them during their internment or
deportation period, and lastly to all subjects of the other party
for crimes against all exceptional laws made to the disadvantage of
enemy foreigners. The amnesty will not apply to actions committed
after the confirmation of the peace treaty.

Article 23. Each party concedes complete amnesty to all its own
subjects in view of the work which they have done in the territory
of the other party as prisoners of war, interned civilians, or
deported civilians.

Article 24. The contracting parties reserve to themselves the right
to make further agreements according to which each party may grant
an amnesty of penalties decreed on account of actions committed to
its disadvantage.

_CHAPTER IX.--The Treatment of Mercantile Vessels and Cargoes Which
Have Fallen Into the Hands of the Enemy._

Article 25. Mercantile ships of one contracting party which lay in
the ports of the other contracting party on the outbreak of the war,
as well as their cargoes, are to be given back to their owners, or
in so far as this is not possible they are to be paid for in money.
For the use of such embargoed vessels during the war the usual daily
freight is to be paid.

Article 26. German mercantile ships and their cargoes which are in
the power of Finland, except in cases foreseen in Article 25 at the
signing of this treaty or which may arrive there later, are to be
given back if on the outbreak of war they were in an enemy port or
were interned in neutral waters by enemy forces.

Article 27. The mercantile vessels of either of the contracting
parties captured as prizes in the zone of power of the other party
shall be regarded as definitely confiscated if they have been
legally condemned as prizes, and if they do not come under the
provisions of Articles 25 and 26. Otherwise they are to be given
back, or, in so far as they are no longer available, they are to be
paid for. The provisions of Paragraph 1 are to apply also to ships'
cargoes taken as prizes belonging to subjects of the contracting
parties, but goods belonging to subjects of one of the contracting
parties on board ships flying enemy flags which have fallen into the
hands of the other contracting party are in all cases to be handed
over to their rightful owners, or, so far as this is not possible,
they are to be paid for.

Article 28. The carrying out of the provisions contained in Articles
25 to 27, especially the fixing of the damages to be paid, shall be
decided by a mixed commission, which shall consist of one
representative from each of the contracting parties with a neutral
umpire, and shall sit in Stettin within three months after the date
of confirmation of the peace treaty. The President of the Swiss
Bundesrat shall be requested to nominate the umpire.

Article 29. The contracting parties will do all in their power to
facilitate the free return of the mercantile ships and their cargoes
to their homes as set forth in Articles 25 to 27. The contracting
parties will also give their support to each other in the
re-establishment of the mutual commercial intercourse, after the
assuring of safe shipping routes, which had been disturbed by the
war.

_CHAPTER X.--Adjustment of the Aland Question._

Article 30. The contracting parties are agreed that the Forts put
upon the Aland Islands are to be removed as soon as possible, and
that the lasting non-fortified character of these Islands and also
their treatment in a military and technical sense for purposes of
shipping, shall be settled by agreement between Germany, Finland,
Russia and Sweden; and to these agreements, at the wish of Germany,
the other States lying in the Baltic Sea shall be invited to assent.

_CHAPTER XI.--Final Provisions._

Article 31. The Peace Treaty shall be confirmed. The confirmatory
documents shall be exchanged as soon as practicable in Berlin.

Article 32. The Peace Treaty, so far as is not otherwise stipulated,
shall come into force with its confirmation. For the making of
supplementary additions to the Treaty the representatives of the
contracting parties shall meet in Berlin within four months of its
confirmation.

German Aggression in Russia

Record of Events Placing Finland and the Ukraine More Fully Under Teutonic Control

During the month ended May 15, 1918, the German advance in the territory of the former Russian Empire continued uninterruptedly. While minor military operations were conducted in the Province of Kursk, in Russia proper, the main body of the invading army occupied the Crimea and penetrated into the Donetz coal basin. On April 24 the German troops, under General Kosch, reached the City of Simferopol, in the Crimea. A week later they occupied Sebastopol, the great military and commercial seaport, famous in Russian history. A portion of the Russian Black Sea fleet fell into the hands of the Germans. On May 3 the invaders seized Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov. On May 9 they took Rostov, at the mouth of the River Don, but two days later the city was again in Russian hands. The Germans are apparently intent on occupying the seacoast from Bessarabia, on the west, to the Caucasus, on the east.

The Bolshevist régime gave signs of undergoing a process of reorganization. It sought to enlist the services of officials who had served under the Provisional Government and of Generals of the old army. A new War Department was formed. Trotzky, the Minister of War and Marine, advocated universal conscription of labor. The Central Executive Committee, at his suggestion, decreed compulsory military service. Workmen and peasants from 18 to 40 years old were to be trained for eight consecutive weeks, for a weekly minimum of eight hours. Women were accepted into the army as volunteers.

The Bolshevist authorities made several attempts to suppress rioting and street looting. Early in May the Red Guards fought a pitched battle with the Moscow anarchists, who refused to surrender their munitions, and stamped out their organization. The Soviets passed resolutions and took measures against the anti-Jewish massacres which occurred in numerous cities. Disorder and mob rule, however, continued to prevail in Russia, while hunger and unemployment were daily increasing.

INDUSTRY CRIPPLED

On April 16 M. Gukovsky, the Commissary for Finance, reported to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets on Russia's financial and industrial condition. He said that the semi-yearly expenditure would amount to 4,000,000,000 rubles, while the income expected was only 3,300,000,000 rubles. The railroads had lost 70 per cent. of their freight capacity, and the cost of operation had increased ten times, (120,000 against 11,600 rubles per versta.) The Central Government, he stated, derived no revenue from taxes, as the local Soviets used the sums they collected for their own purposes. To illustrate the industrial conditions the Commissary cited the example of the Sormov locomotive works, whose daily output is two locomotives, instead of eighteen as formerly. M. Gukovsky recommended strict economy in expenditures and urged the necessity of securing the services of financial and industrial experts for the purpose of organizing an efficient State machinery.

Among the recent legislative measures of the Moscow Government must be mentioned the nationalization of foreign trade, which is a part of the general Bolshevist scheme of Socialist reforms. A special board has been created to regulate the prices of all exports and imports.

In the middle of April hostilities were reopened between the newly collected troops of General Korniloff, former Russian Commander in Chief, and the Bolshevist forces. It was reported that the Bolsheviki heavily defeated the anti-Soviet troops, capturing Novocherkask and wounding the Cossack General. It was also stated that General Dutoff, another anti-Bolshevist leader, was captured by the Soviet troops, and that General Semyonov, the leader of the Cossack movement against the Bolsheviki in Siberia, was killed.

The incident of the Japanese landing at Vladivostok was near closing, when further interest in the Far Eastern situation was aroused in Russia by a number of documents seized on the person of a member of the anti-Soviet "Siberian Government." According to a note addressed on April 26 by M. Chicherin to diplomatic representatives in Moscow, these documents proved that the Consuls of Great Britain, France, and America--and the diplomatic representatives of these powers in Peking--sought to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia by participating in the counter-revolutionary movement for an autonomous Government in Siberia. A similar charge was laid to the Japanese officials. The Russian Government, therefore, demanded the recall of the allied Consular officers at Vladivostok, also asking the Allies to define their attitude toward the Soviet Government. Neither Ambassador Francis nor the French Ambassador, M. Noulens, made any official reply to the Russian charges. M. Noulens had previously drawn upon himself the wrath of the Bolsheviki by declaring that the armed intervention of the Allies in Russia would be an act of friendly assistance. Mr. Francis informally notified the Moscow Government that, in his opinion, the documents failed to involve the American officials. On May 9 Secretary Lansing instructed him to present informally to the Russian Foreign Office a denial of its charge against the American Consul at Vladivostok.

ENEMY PROPAGANDA

In a speech on April 27 Baron Shimpei Goto, the new Japanese Foreign Minister, referred to the malevolent propaganda which is being conducted in Russia with a view to creating an estrangement between Japan and Russia. He expressed the view that "Russia is a power endeavoring to reorganize a machine temporarily out of order," adding: "Japan must give encouragement, assistance, and support to the work of reorganization in Russia. We trust the sound sense of the Russian people will not be misled by reports calculated to keep the two neighbors apart."

Shortly after the capture of Sebastopol the Russian Government protested to Germany against the seizure of the Black Sea fleet and the invasion of the Crimea. The Russian note pointed out that these acts were in contravention of the Brest treaty and that they might endanger the peaceful relations between the two countries. The Germans did not seem to be concerned to maintain these relations. They treated the population of the occupied territories with harshness. Starving refugees were not admitted into the regions under their domination. It was reported that in the Government of Minsk able-bodied persons were seized in the streets and sent to Germany in locked cars. Constant food requisitioning was another feature of the German rule in Russia.

RUSSIA'S PROTEST

On April 15 M. Chicherin, Russian Commissary for Foreign Affairs, protested to Berlin against the outrages committed by the German troops in Russia. The text of the note follows:

The Central Soviet institutions receive many complaints with regard
to German troops burning Russian villages and using violence against
Russian inhabitants. An eyewitness well known to us and absolutely
trustworthy states that at Lepel, northwest of Mogileff, German
soldiers killed a whole family, not sparing women and children, on
the plea that one of the family belonged to a partisan detachment.
The local military authorities state that at the village of
Novoselki, Mogileff, on April 5, there appeared an officer and
soldiers of the 346th Regiment and took oats from the inhabitants by
force. The officer was killed by the peasants, and the soldiers
fled. After this the village was surrounded by the soldiers, fired
on by machine guns, and burned.

The following day the German commander sent a notice to the Russian
military authorities at Orsha saying that the inhabitants of
Novoselki had been ejected, and the village burned owing to a German
officer's being killed.

Observers of Russian life agree that feelings of resentment and animosity on the part of the Russian population for the German oppressor are steadily growing throughout the country. At the same time good feeling between the Russians and the Allies, especially the Americans, is on the increase. British and French troops are co-operating with Bolshevist forces in defending against Finns and Germans the Murman seacoast and the railway from the interior of Russia to the arctic ports of Alexandrovsk and Archangel, where large supplies of valuable war materials are stored up. The War Council attached to the Murman local Soviet consists of one Russian, one Englishman, and one Frenchman. The landing of the allied troops at Alexandrovsk the Germans regarded as a violation of the Brest treaty, which provides for peace with Finland, and protested to the Moscow Government against the act.

The constant exchange of protests between Berlin and Moscow is partly caused by the ambiguous wording of the Brest treaty. On April 24 Adolf Joffe, the Bolshevist Ambassador in Berlin, telegraphed to Moscow that the Russian translation of the treaty was considered by the German authorities incorrect, and that the publication of the final draft of the document was postponed until the receipt of an authentic version.

DISMEMBERING RUSSIA

It appears that Germany has been making further attempts to encourage the separatist tendency in Russia, in contravention of the Brest treaty. The German Government is reported to have inquired of the local Crimean authorities concerning the nationalization of their flag. The Bolsheviki interpreted this step as indicative of the German desire to separate the Taurida Republic from the Russian Federation.

According to a communication issued by the Rumanian Chargé d'Affaires, the National Assembly of Bessarabia voted, on April 9, the union of the province to Rumania by 86 against 3. Thereupon, the Rumanian Premier, amid enthusiastic acclamation, proclaimed the union to be "definitive and indissoluble," and a delegation was sent to Jassy to present the homage of the people of Bessarabia to the King. Rumania seems to have acted at the suggestion of Germany. It is known that the latter proposed to Rumania to annex a part of Bessarabia and thus compensate herself for Rumanian territory taken by Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. It is also known that (on March 22?) Russia signed a treaty with Rumania regarding Bessarabia. The province was to be evacuated by the Rumanian troops, which had occupied it at the request of the population, and the guarding of Bessarabia was to pass into the hands of local militia, while all evacuated places were to be immediately occupied by Russian troops. Russia undertook to leave Rumania the surplus of Bessarabian grain remaining after the local population and Russian troops had been provided for. The Ukrainian Government refused to recognize the step taken by Bessarabia.

According to the terms of the Brest treaty the Baltic Provinces Esthonia and Livonia were to remain under Russian sovereignty, but three weeks later Germany began intriguing for a union of these countries with the Kingdom of Russia. The falsity of the assertion that the people of Esthonia favored a Baltic monarchy was exposed by the following protest of the Esthonian Provisional Government, published April 22:

Regarding the communication from Berlin that the joint Landtag of
Esthonia, Livonia, Riga, and Oesel has decided upon the separation
of Baltic provinces from Russia and the creation of a Baltic
monarchy in personal union with Prussia, I declare, as
representative of the Esthonian Republic, that this resolution does
not constitute an expression of opinion of the Esthonian people, but
only that of a German nobility minority and its adherents.

On May 5 the British Government informally recognized the Esthonian Provisional Government and, in the words of Mr. Balfour's communication, "reaffirmed their readiness to grant provisional recognition to the Esthonian National Council as a de facto independent body until the peace conference, when the future status of Esthonia ought to be settled as far as possible in accordance with the wishes of the population."

On April 26 Transcaucasia declared its independence under a conservative Government, headed by M. Chkhemkeli.

Count von Mirbach, the Royal German Ambassador to Russia, accompanied by a Turkish representative, arrived in Moscow on April 23. He was welcomed by the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee as "a representative of a power with which a peace treaty has been concluded at Brest-Litovsk, as a result of which peace, so needed by the people, was established between the two States." Pravda, the official Bolshevist daily, greeted the Royal German Ambassador as "the plenipotentiary of an armed band which with limitless audacity oppresses and robs wherever it is able to thrust in with a bloody imperialistic bayonet."

ULTIMATUM ON PRISONERS

Germany has shown eagerness to obtain the release and the use of the able-bodied German prisoners who are now in Russia. It is believed that there are at present upward of 1,000,000 German prisoners of war in European Russia and Siberia. It was reported on April 27 that a special German commission had arrived in Moscow to take charge of the exchange of prisoners with Russia, and that exchanges of invalids had already begun. The number of Russians in German hands is estimated at 3,000,000. An earlier official German communication explained the delay in repatriating Russians by the lack of transportation facilities. On April 29 the State Department at Washington gave out the following statement:

The Department of State has learned that there will shortly leave
for Russia a German commission, consisting of 115 members, which
will take up the question of the exchange of Russian and German
prisoners. It is reported that it is the purpose of the commission
merely to present to the Russian authorities an ultimatum from
Germany requiring, first, the immediate release of all German
prisoners who are in good health; second, that those who are ill
will remain in Russia under the care of neutral physicians, and,
third, that the Germans on their side will release only those
Russian prisoners in Germany who are invalids or who are
incapacitated. In the event of a refusal on the part of Russia,
Germany will order that Petrograd be taken.

Upon the heels of this ultimatum came another one, served on the Council of the People's Commissaries by the German Ambassador, Count von Mirbach. According to a dispatch, the new ultimatum, too, dated May 10, had a bearing on the prisoner question, but in addition demanded complete cessation of arming troops and the disbandment of units already formed. This demand produced an unusual stir in Russia. The Commissaries held an extraordinary session at which the situation created by the ultimatum was discussed. The Bolsheviki showed no intention of complying with the German ultimatum.

On May 12 Foreign Minister Chicherin instructed the Russian Ambassador, M. Joffe, at Berlin to "try to obtain from Berlin cessation of every kind of hostility." The Germans had announced their intention to capture Novorossiysk, on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea, under the pretext that the Russian warships, which had escaped seizure at Sebastopol and which are stationed at Novorossiysk, constituted a danger for the German vessels. The instruction added that the German invasion of Russian territory was causing much unrest in the country.

COUP IN THE UKRAINE

On April 18 the State Department at Washington announced that, according to an authentic report, the Teutons intended to dissolve the Ukrainian Rada and set up a Government of their own. On April 24 a Ukrainian financier prominent in aiding the Germans was arrested in the name of "the Committee of Ukrainian Safety." The German Vice Chancellor, Friedrich von Payer, in his speech before the Main Committee of the Reichstag, said that this secret organization aimed at driving the Germans out of the country and was even planning the assassination of all German officers. It included a number of prominent Ukrainians, several Ministers of State among them, and held its meetings at the house of the Minister of War. An investigation was demanded by the German Ambassador, but the Rada took no action.

Two days later General von Eichhorn, Commander of the German Army in the Ukraine, proclaimed "a state of enhanced protection," making all offenders of order subject to the jurisdiction of German court-martial. He had previously issued a field-sowing decree, necessitated, as the Germans explained, by the fact that the Rada had taken no measures concerning the field sowing, without which the country could not meet its treaty obligations relative to the delivery of grain to Germany. On April 28, while the Rada was in session, German troops entered the hall and arrested a number of its members, the Minister of War among them. The next day a number of landowners and rich peasants who were holding a convention in Kiev declared its sessions permanent, voted the dissolution of the Rada as well as the cancellation of the order convoking the Constituent Assembly on May 12, and proclaimed General Skoropadsky Hetman (Supreme Military Chief) of the Ukraine.

The Rada ceased to exist. It had but scant support in the country. A creature of the Teutons, it was supported by their armed forces. It proved unable to secure the delivery of the promised foodstuffs to the Central Powers. Owing to the resistance of the population only 3,000,000 poods (pood, 36 pounds) were delivered to the Teutons, instead of 30,000,000 poods, which the Rada undertook to supply. The Germans then withdrew their support. According to various reports, the German agents took an active part in the overthrowing of the Rada.

Speaking of the fall of the Rada, the German Vice Chancellor said that "stubborn adherence to communistic theories that have gained no sympathy among the peasant population, which is attached to the soil, seems to have been principally responsible for bringing about its end." One of the first acts of the new Government was the restoration of private ownership of land. The new régime has many features of an autocratic rule. The following information regarding the extent of the Hetman's powers is furnished by the German Service of Propaganda:

The Government power in its entire capacity belongs to the Hetman
for all the territory of the State. The Hetman ratifies the laws, he
appoints the President of the Council of Ministers, he is chief
director of the relations of foreign affairs of the Ukrainian State,
he is Generalissimo of the army and of the navy, he declares war,
proclaims martial law and exceptional laws. In the administration of
justice he has the right of pardon and commutation of sentence.

It has been pointed out that, while the reconstructed Ukrainian Government is emphatically and avowedly pro-German, some of its leading spirits are Russian patriots and advocates of a union with Russia. Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich is said to have taken an active part in the coup d'état. A dispatch, dated May 10, announced the beginning of peace negotiations between Russia and the Ukraine.

GERMAN PENETRATION

United States Minister Morris at Stockholm cabled to the State Department on May 14:

Swedish press reports from Moscow state that Count von Mirbach
recently transmitted to the Commissariat of the People a note
formulated as an ultimatum and demanding the immediate effecting of
certain financial measures which would practically make Russia a
German colony. The chief points of the note were the immediate
solution of the question regarding the exchange of prisoners, the
complete abolishment of armaments, and the dissolution of units
formed recently; also the occupation of Moscow and some other large
Russian cities.

On the same date it was reported from Moscow that the Germans had captured Rostov-on-Don, thus gaining control of the Caucasus, the grain districts in the Donnetz Basin, and the coal, iron, and oil fields. Northern Russia was thus cut off from the Caucasus, excepting for a single railroad running through Tsaritsin, in the southern part of the Government of Saratov, which the Germans were threatening.

The dispatch continued as follows:

The Governmental power in its entire Government, with which it had
made peace, is regarded by North Russia as a step toward its
occupation. Within a few weeks the future of Petrograd and Moscow
probably will be determined, as it is considered that the Soviet
Government either must submit to German domination or retreat
eastward and prepare for a defense against the invaders. Effective
resistance will be difficult without outside assistance, because of
the lack of technical experts and supplies. The bitter feeling
against Germany is intensified by the ruthless seizures in Ukraine,
and a growing disposition to accept allied aid if the Entente Allies
will recognize the Bolshevist Government is evident.

RUSSIA'S LOSSES

The Commissariat of Commerce on April 10 gave the following summary of what Russia lost by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk:

Inhabitants 56,000,000 (About one-third total European Russia.) Territory 300,000 square miles (About one-sixth total European area.) Railways 13,000 miles (About one-third total mileage.) Coal 89 per cent. Iron 73 " Machinery 1,073 factories. Textiles 918 " Paper 615 " Chemicals 244 " Tobacco 133 " Spirits 1,685 distilleries. Beer 574 breweries. Sugar 268 refineries.

The lost territories used to yield an annual revenue of nearly $425,000,000 and boasted 1,800 savings banks.

More Bolshevist Legislation

By Abraham Yarmolinsky

Speaking on Dec. 5, 1917, before the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets on the subject of the right of constituents to recall their representatives, Nikolai Lenine, the head of the proletarian Government of Russia, made the following remark: "The State is an institution for coercion. Formerly it was a handful of money-bags that outraged the whole nation. We, on the contrary, wish to transform the State into an institution of coercion which must do the will of the people. We desire to organize violence in the name of the interests of the toilers." The April issue of CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE contained a general outline of the manner in which the makers of the social revolution applied this principle of Statehood to the solution of various problems of home government. The present article will deal more in detail with some of the acts of the Bolshevist legislators. There is no better way of gaining an insight into the views and intentions of the present rulers of Russia than to study the abundant output of their legislative machinery.

CONTROLLING PRODUCTION

Lenine's Government has worked out an elaborate scheme of State control over national production and distribution as a preliminary step toward the complete socialization of the country's industry and commerce. The semi-legislative, semi-executive organs created for that purpose form an intricate hierarchy of affiliated elective bodies and corporations of a large and ill-defined jurisdiction.

In the first place, there have been instituted so-called Soviets of Workmen's Control, (decree of Nov. 27, 1917.) These are made up of representatives of trade unions, factory committees, and productive co-operatives, and aim at regulating the economic life of industrial plants using hired labor, the control in each enterprise being effected through the elective bodies of the workmen, together with the representatives of the salaried employes. The executive organs of the Soviets of Workmen's Control have the right to fix the minimum output of a given firm, to determine the cost of the articles produced, to inspect the books and accounts, and, in general, to supervise the production and the various business transactions. Commercial secrecy, like diplomatic secrecy, is abolished. The owners and controlling agencies are responsible to the State for the safety of the property and for the strictest order and discipline within the precincts of the establishments. The local Soviets are subordinated to provincial Soviets of Workmen's Control, which issue local regulations, take up the complaints of the owners against the controlling agencies, and settle the conflicts between the latter.

The Central All-Russian Soviet of Workmen's Control issues general instructions and co-ordinates the activities of this controlling system with the efforts of the other administrative organs regulating the economic life of the country.

The members of this central institution of control, together with representatives from each Commissariat (Ministry of State) and also expert advisers, form the Supreme Soviet (Council) of National Economy, instituted by the decree of Dec. 18, 1917. This body directs and unifies the work of regulating the national economy and the State finances. It is empowered to confiscate, requisition, sequestrate, and syndicate various establishments in the field of production, distribution, and State finances. The Supreme Council is divided into several sections, each of which deals with a separate economic phase. Among other tasks devolving upon these sections is the drafting of the law projects for the respective Commissariats. Bills affecting national economy in its entirety are brought before the Council of the People's Commissaries through the Supreme Council of National Economy.

ECONOMIC REGULATION

On Jan. 5, 1918, the Institute of Local Soviets of National Economy was created, "for the purpose of organizing and regulating the economic life of each industrial section in accordance with the national and local interests." Affiliated with the local Soviets of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, they are subject to the authority of the Supreme Council of National Economy. They are made up of representatives from trade unions, factory committees, workmen's co-operatives, land committees, and the technical personnel of industrial and commercial establishments. The inner organization of these bodies is elaborate. There are sections, divisions, (of organization, supply and distribution, labor, and statistics,) and business offices.

Here are some of the functions of these Soviets. They must:

1. Manage the private enterprises confiscated by the State and given
over to the workmen, such as, for instance, a number of factories in
the Ural mining district.

2. Determine the amount of fuel, raw materials, machinery, means of
transportation, labor, &c., needed by the given industrial section,
and the amount available in it.

3. Provide for the economic needs of the section.

4. Distribute the orders for goods among the individual enterprises
and work out the basis for the distribution of labor, raw material,
machinery, &c.

5. Regulate transportation in the section.

6. See to it that all the productive forces should be fully utilized
both in industry and agriculture.

7. Improve the sanitary conditions of labor.

LAND COMMITTEES

The activity of the Soviets of National Economy is restricted to the field of industry. Their counterpart in agriculture are the so-called land committees.

The decree relating to agrarian socialization, voted by the Bolsheviki at 2 A. M., Nov. 8, 1917, recommends the use of a certain _nakaz_, (mandate,) based on 242 resolutions passed by village communities, as a guide in putting the land reform into practice. Article 8 of this _nakaz_, which is a paraphrase of the agrarian program of the Social Revolutionists, reads thus: "All the land, upon confiscation, forms a national agrarian fund. The distribution of the land among the toilers is taken care of by local and central self-governing bodies. * * * The land is periodically redistributed, with the growth of population and the rise of the productivity of agricultural labor."

For the purpose of putting this program into operation and regulating the economic life of the village generally there have been instituted land committees, (decree of Nov. 16,) one for each volost, (rural district including several villages.) They are to be elected by the population of the district and exist as separate institutions, or function as an organ of the volost zemstvo, wherever this is found. The duties of a land committee are many and complex. It takes inventory of all the land in the district and allots to each village its share of plow land, meadows, and pastures, seeing to it that the land should be equitably distributed among the individual toilers and correctly tilled. It grants lease of lands and waters, not subject to distribution, receives the rent and turns it over to the national fund. It regulates the supply and demand of agricultural labor, takes charge of the forests, fixes prices of timber, receives and fills orders for fuel from the State, and takes the necessary measures to preserve the large, scientifically conducted agricultural establishments.

The delegates of a number of volost land committees, together with representatives of the local zemstvo and the Soviet of Workmen's and Soldier's Delegates, form a county committee. The latter, in its turn, sends a delegate to the Provincial Land Committee. The Main Land Committee, which heads the whole system, is an independent institution on a par with the central State organizations. It is a large group of people, consisting of the Commissariat of Agriculture, together with representatives from the following bodies: The Commissariats of Finance, Justice, and Internal Affairs, the provincial Land Committees, the All-Russian Soviet of Peasants' Deputies, the All-Russian Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, and the political parties.

NO MORE LANDLORDS

The Bolsheviki have been careful to extend the abolition of private land ownership to city real estate. By a special decree they abrogated the property rights in city land and in those of the city buildings whose value, together with that of the ground they occupy, exceeds a certain minimum, fixed in each municipality by the local authorities, or which are regularly let for rent, although their value does not exceed the minimum. The land and the buildings are declared public property. The dispossessed owners retain the right to use the apartment they occupy in their former property, provided the apartment is worth no more than 800 rubles of rent per annum. In case the value of the apartment exceeds this maximum the former owner pays the difference to the local Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates. All the rent which formerly went to the landlord is now paid to that institution or to the Municipal Council. Not more than one-third of the sum thus collected is to be used to meet the various needs of the community; 10 per cent. of it goes to the national housing fund; the rest forms the local housing fund for erecting new buildings, laying out streets, and making other improvements.

COMPULSORY INSURANCE

Municipal socialization of land values, while manifestly intended to benefit the poorer classes, directly affects all the elements of the city population. Other measures enacted by the Bolsheviki are restricted to the proletariat, and properly belong to the field of specific labor legislation. Thus, a law has been passed limiting the working day in both industrial and commercial establishments to eight hours, and further regulating the work of women and children. Furthermore, a minimum wage of the hired workers has been fixed in each section of the country. But by far the most radical and characteristic innovations launched by the Bolshevist Government in this line of legislation are those relating to compulsory insurance of workmen.

On Dec. 29 there was created the Institute of Insurance Soviets, with an executive organ in the form of a Chamber of Insurance. It is the intention of the Government to introduce compulsory insurance for laborers against sickness, unemployment, invalidism, and accidents. The regulations published so far relate only to the first two forms of insurance. The respective decrees rule that throughout the territory of the Russian Republic all hired workers, without distinction of sex, age, religion, nationality, race, and allegiance, are to be insured against sickness and unemployment, irrespective of the character and duration of their work. Salaried employes and members of liberal professions are not subject to this regulation.

At the moment the workman is hired by the employer he automatically becomes a member of two fraternities. In the event of his illness, one furnishes him free medical aid and a weekly allowance equal to his wages; the other assures him the equivalent of his wages if he loses his employment and becomes an unemployed workman. The latter term the law defines as "any able-bodied person depending for subsistence chiefly upon the wages of his (or her) labor, who is unable to find work at the normal rate of remuneration fixed by the proper trade union, and who is registered in a local labor exchange or trade union." The workmen contribute no dues to the fraternities. The income of the latter consists mainly of the payments made by the employers. The owner of an establishment using hired labor must contribute each week to the health insurance fraternity 10 per cent. of the sum he pays out as wages, and at least 3 per cent. of the same sum to the unemployment insurance fraternity. The administrative machinery of this novel form of insurance is worked out with much detail.

It is natural to ask how the various institutions described above are working, if they are functioning at all. It is clear that the smooth working of a great number of cumbersome and wholly novel administrative agencies in a body politic torn by an unprecedented social upheaval amid the horrors of a twofold war would be little short of a miracle. Moreover, it appears that the Bolsheviki have already grown disappointed in some of their political dogmas, notably in the unrestrained and ubiquitous application of the elective principle. Nevertheless, the query, in its entirety, can hardly be adequately answered at present. The time is not far off, however, when it will be possible to say whether the measures decreed in the name of the dictatorial will of the Russian proletariat have taken root or--and this alternative is more probable--whether they have remained merely codified day-dreams.

Lithuania's Efforts Toward Autonomy

By A. M. Martus

In the press of the United States on May 4, 1918, there appeared a notice that President Wilson had given audience to the Lithuanian delegation, recognizing the Lithuanians as a distinctively separate race having rights of self-determination.

At the time of the upheavals in Russia, during the Russo-Japanese war in 1905, Lithuanians, irrespective of political affiliations, held a convention in their capital, Vilna, over 2,000 delegates participating, where they unanimously asserted their right of self-government; also expressing a strong desire to form one political body with their half-brothers, the Letts.

Again in October, 1917, a convention was held in Vilna with about 250 delegates from those parts of Lithuania occupied by German forces, to press their claim of independence for Lithuania. In January, 1918, representative Lithuanians assembled in the same city proclaimed independent Lithuania. Another convention of Lithuanian representatives from Russia and from Lithuanian communities in the United States, England, and Argentina, held in the same month in Stockholm, Sweden, approved the act of their countrymen under German domination. On March 13 and 14 American Lithuanians held a convention in New York City, giving their unanimous approval to the proclaiming of an Independent Lithuanian Republic; here a unanimous resolution was passed protesting against any Polish aspirations or claims to Lithuania, and demanding the inclusion of the Lithuanian part of East Prussia, with the old Lithuanian city of Karaliauchus (Königsberg,) in the Lithuanian Republic.

Lithuanians claim those parts of the neighboring provinces where their language is spoken and where the inhabitants consider themselves Lithuanians. They claim the eastern part of East Prussia--about 13,500 square miles, with 700,000 or 800,000 inhabitants--and parts of the provinces of Minsk and Vitebsk; thus the Lithuanian-Lettish Republic would stretch over 131,000 square miles and have a population of over 11,500,000, inhabiting five centres--Karaliauchus, (Königsberg,) Klaipeda, (Memel,) Libau, Windau, and Riga.

The country is very rich for agriculture, though it contains much undeveloped land, with many rivers, lakes, and large forests. Along the River Nieman in Druskeniki, Government of Goodns, and in Birchtany, Government of Vilna, there are salt springs of high healing qualities, but on account of a corrupt Russian Government they remain undeveloped and unexploited. The seabeach around Palanga, a little distance above Germany's border on the Baltic, could be turned into another Atlantic City, according to the opinion of experts, but the place remains neglected. Lithuania's soil is very rich in aluminium and in material for manufacturing glass. During my last visit to Lithuania, in 1914, the discovery of radium was reported in the vicinity of the mineral springs at Birchtany, but the war came on very soon and nothing further was heard of it.

BRITISH LEADERS ON LAND AND SEA

_Formerly Director of Operations at the British War Office, now holding a high position abroad_

(_Press Illustrating Service_)]

_Canadian Minister of Militia and Defense_

(_Press Illustrating Service_)]

_Who directed the British attack on Zeebrugge_

(_Central News_)]

_Who stopped the gap in the British line before Amiens_ (© _Underwood_)]

(© _Underwood_)]

(_Paul Thompson_)]

In March, 1918, Lithuanians demanded that Germany recognize their Provisional Government. The Tevyne of New York, official organ of the Lithuanian Alliance of America, received the following from its correspondent in Russia, relayed from Yokohama, March 26:

In Lithuania there has been formed a Provisional Government
consisting of the following: A. Smetona, Premier; P. Dovydailis,
Minister of Education; J. Shaulys, Minister of Foreign Affairs; M.
Smilgevichus, Minister of Finances; M. Birzhishka, Minister of
Justice; J. Vileishis, Minister of Public Works; D. Malinauskas,
Minister of Public Safety. Dr. J. Shlupas, well known among American
Lithuanians, has been appointed Envoy Plenipotentiary to the United
States; J. Aukshtuolis, President of the Lithuanian Committee in
Stockholm, is made Ambassador to the Scandinavian countries; M.
Ychas, member of the last Russian Duma, Ambassador to England and
France; J. Gabrys, manager of the Lithuanian Information Bureau in
Switzerland, Ambassador to the Central Powers. A national army is
being organized. Lithuania's absolute neutrality was proclaimed.
Drafted a political and economic treaty with Sweden.

Lithuanians fought in the Russian Army against the Germans, and now large numbers of them are joining the military and naval forces of the United States to fight the common foe; some are already in the English Army. Lithuania has suffered not for her own faults, but because she was situated between two belligerents. In the Government of Suvalki the German and Russian Armies chased each other nine times backward and forward; one may imagine how much is left there. Nothing but excavations, trenches, heaps of ruins, crumbling chimneys indicate where previously were large and prosperous villages. The world is yet to hear more about German requisitions, German devastations, and German rapine in Lithuania. Not only forests were denuded, but even fruit trees on the farms were cut down and shipped to Germany. The remaining inhabitants are forced to raise crops for the invaders, and for their various products they must accept, under penalty, specially printed money for local use--money that Germans themselves would not accept.

Notwithstanding reports to the contrary, the Lithuanians were with the Allies all the time, and will stand by them to the end. They have faith that the Allies, when the proper time comes, will recognize their just claims.

Germany to Impose "War Burdens" on Lithuania

Emperor William on May 12, 1918, issued the following proclamation regarding Lithuania:

We, Wilhelm, by God's grace German Emperor, King of Prussia, &c.,
hereby make known that, whereas the Lithuanian Landsrat, as the
recognized representative of the Lithuanian people, on Dec. 12
announced the restoration of Lithuania as an independent State
allied to the German Empire by an eternal, steadfast alliance, and
by conventions chiefly regarding military matters, traffic, customs,
and coinage, and solicited the help of the German Empire; and,

Whereas, further, Previous political connections in Lithuania are
dissolved, we command our Imperial Chancellor to declare Lithuania
on the basis of the aforementioned declarations of the Lithuanian
Landsrat, in the name of the German Empire, as a free and
independent State, and we are prepared to accord the Lithuanian
State the solicited help and assistance in its restoration.

We assume that the conventions to be concluded will take the
interests of the German Empire into account equally with those of
Lithuania, and that Lithuania will participate in the war burdens of
Germany, which secured her liberation.

The Lithuanian National Council, with headquarters at Washington, replied to the foregoing proclamation on May 14 as follows:

The assumption that Lithuania "will participate in the war burdens
of Germany" means a contribution of three things: Money, munitions,
and men. The first we have not, as Germany has already impoverished
us; the second, we have no means of supplying, because we lack the
first. Therefore, Germany can have reference only to men. Men from a
self-declared democracy to fight in the ranks of autocracy?
Unthinkable. Lithuania would not consent. Are her citizens to be
dragooned into the ranks of the Kaiser? This would be an abridgment
of the sovereignty which Germany has already recognized, for
Chancellor von Hertling's reply stated, "We hereby recognize
Lithuania as free and independent."

Germany knows that ultimate defeat is unavoidable, but she would
compensate losses in the west with gains in the east, among which
Lithuania is gambled on as an asset. No recognition of Lithuanian
independence can be sincere when coupled with the von Hertling
terms, but if this sop will add to Prussian man power it may
postpone somewhat the inevitable day of reckoning and give her more
time to Germanize in the east with a view of confederating the new
republics under Junker rule.

The Raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend

British Naval Exploit That Damaged Two German U-Boat Bases on the North Sea Coast

The little Belgian port of Zeebrugge fell into German hands in the Autumn of 1914, and, with the neighboring port of Ostend, became a thorn in the side of the Entente by reason of its increasing use as a base for enemy destroyers, submarines, and aircraft. The Germans, having seized the shipbuilding plants at Antwerp, began building submarines and small war craft, which could be sent by way of Bruges down the canals that connect the latter city with Zeebrugge and Ostend. Especially useful to them was the maritime canal whose mouth at Zeebrugge was protected by a crescent-shaped mole, thirty feet high, inclosing the harbor.

On the night of April 22-23, 1918, a British naval expedition under Vice Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, commanding at Dover, aided by French destroyers, undertook to wreck the stone mole at Zeebrugge and to block the entrances to the canals both at Zeebrugge and at Ostend by sinking the hulks of old ships in the channels. The episode, marked as it was by heroic fighting, proved to be one of the most thrilling and picturesque in the naval operations of the war. To Americans it recalled Hobson's exploit with the Merrimac at Santiago, while to Englishmen it brought back memories of Sir Francis Drake and his fireships in the Harbor of Cadiz.

Though the fighting at Zeebrugge lasted only an hour, the British lost 588 men, officially reported as follows: Officers--Killed, 16; died of wounds, 3; missing, 2; wounded, 29. Men--Killed, 144; died of wounds, 25; missing, 14; wounded, 355.

Six obsolete British cruisers took part in the attack. They were the Brilliant, Iphigenia, Sirius, Intrepid, Thetis, and Vindictive. The first five of these were filled with concrete and were to be sunk in the entrances of the two ports. The Vindictive, working with the two Mersey ferryboats Daffodil and Iris, carried storming and demolition parties to the Zeebrugge mole. The object was to attack the enemy forces and guns on the mole, along with the destroyer and submarine depots and the large seaplane base upon it, and thus to divert the enemy's attention from the work of the block ships. As the attack on the mole accomplished this, the main object of the operation was successful.

The attacking forces were composed of bluejackets and Royal Marines picked from the Grand Fleet and from naval and marine depots. Sir Eric Geddes stated in Parliament the next morning that light forces belonging to the Dover command and Harwich forces under Admiral Tyrwhitte covered the operation from the south. A large force of monitors, together with many motor launches and small, fast craft took part. One of the essentials of success was the creation of a heavy veil of artificial fog or smoke. The officer who developed this phase of the attack was killed in action. The general plan was to attack the guns and works on the Zeebrugge mole with storming parties, while the concrete-laden cruisers were being sunk in the channel. Two old and valueless submarines filled with explosives were to be blown up against the viaduct connecting the mole with the shore.

STORY OF THE FIGHTING

A detailed narrative of the affair was issued by the British Admiralty on the 25th, the essential passages of which are as follows:

The night was overcast and there was a drifting haze. Down the coast
a great searchlight swung its beam to and fro in the small wind and
short sea. From the Vindictive's bridge, as she headed in toward
the mole, with the faithful ferryboats at her heels, there was
scarcely a glimmer of light to be seen shoreward. Ahead, as she
drove through the water, rolled the smoke screen, her cloak of
invisibility, wrapped about her by small craft. This was the device
of Wing Commander Brock, without which, acknowledges the Admiral in
command, the operation could not have been conducted.

A northeast wind moved the volume of it shoreward ahead of the
ships. Beyond it was the distant town, its defenders unsuspicious.
It was not until the Vindictive, with bluejackets and marines
standing ready for landing, was close upon the mole that the wind
lulled and came away again from the southeast, sweeping back the
smoke screen and laying her bare to eyes that looked seaward.

There was a moment immediately afterward when it seemed to those on
the ships as if the dim, coast-hidden harbor exploded into light. A
star shell soared aloft, then a score of star shells. The wavering
beams of the searchlights swung around and settled into a glare. A
wild fire of gun flashes leaped against the sky, strings of luminous
green beads shot aloft, hung and sank. The darkness of the night was
supplemented by a nightmare daylight of battle-fired guns and
machine guns along the mole. The batteries ashore awoke to life.

Landing on the Mole

It was in a gale of shelling that the Vindictive laid her nose
against the thirty-foot high concrete side of the mole, let go her
anchor and signaled to the Daffodil to shove her stern in.

The Iris went ahead and endeavored to get alongside likewise. The
fire was intense, while the ships plunged and rolled beside the mole
in the seas, the Vindictive with her greater draught jarring against
the foundations of the mole with every lunge. They were swept
diagonally by machine-gun fire from both ends of the mole and by the
heavy batteries on shore.

Commander (now Captain) Carpenter conned the Vindictive from the
open bridge until her stern was laid in, when he took up his
position in the flame thrower hut on the port side. It is marvelous
that any occupant should have survived a minute in this hut, so
riddled and shattered is it.

The officers of the Iris, which was in trouble ahead of the
Vindictive, describe Captain Carpenter as handling her like a picket
boat. The Vindictive was fitted along her port side with a high
false deck, from which ran eighteen brows or gangways by which the
storming and demolition parties were to land.

The men gathered in readiness on the main lower decks, while
Colonel Elliott, who was to lead the marines, waited on the false
deck just abaft the bridge. Captain Halahan, who commanded the
bluejackets, was amidships. The gangways were lowered, and they
scraped and rebounded upon the high parapet of the mole as the
Vindictive rolled in the sea-way.

The word for the assault had not yet been given when both leaders
were killed, Colonel Elliott by a shell and Captain Halahan by
machine-gun fire which swept the decks. The same shell that killed
Colonel Elliott also did fearful execution in the forward Stokes
mortar battery. The men were magnificent; every officer bears the
same testimony.

The mere landing on the mole was a perilous business. It involved a
passage across the crashing and splintering gangways, a drop over
the parapet into the field of fire of the German machine guns which
swept its length, and a further drop of some sixteen feet to the
surface of the mole itself. Many were killed and more wounded as
they crowded up the gangways, but nothing hindered the orderly and
speedy landing by every gangway.

Lieutenant H. T. C. Walker had his arm shot away by shell on the
upper deck, and lay in darkness while the storming parties trod him
under. He was recognized and dragged aside by the commander. He
raised his remaining arm in greetings. "Good luck to you," he called
as the rest of the stormers hastened by. "Good luck."

The lower deck was a shambles as the commander made the rounds of
the ship, yet those wounded and dying raised themselves to cheer as
he made his tour. * * *

Heroic Work on the Iris

The Iris had troubles of her own. Her first attempts to make fast to
the mole ahead of the Vindictive failed, as her grapnels were not
large enough to span the parapet. Two officers, Lieut. Commander
Bradford and Lieutenant Hawkins, climbed ashore and sat astride the
parapet trying to make the grapnels fast till each was killed and
fell down between the ship and the wall. Commander Valentine Gibbs
had both legs shot away and died next morning. Lieutenant Spencer,
though wounded, took command and refused to be relieved.

The Iris was obliged at last to change her position and fall in
astern of the Vindictive, and suffered very heavily from fire. A
single big shell plunged through the upper deck and burst below at a
point where fifty-six marines were waiting for the order to go to
the gangways. Forty-nine were killed. The remaining seven were
wounded. Another shell in the ward-room, which was serving as a sick
bay, killed four officers and twenty-six men. Her total casualties
were eight officers and sixty-nine men killed and three officers and
103 men wounded.