Chapter XII: Jurisdiction of the Local Organs of the Soviets (3)

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII

THE RED TERROR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PETROGRAD, _February 22, 1918_.

ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[16] Uritzky is thus described by Maurice Verstraete:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All above measures should be put immediately into execution.

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

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

Acknowledge the receipt of this telegram.

Transmit to district Soviets.

[Signed] PETROVSKY.[17]

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

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