Chapter II: Preface (1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN SPARGO.

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

“THE GREATEST FAILURE
IN ALL HISTORY”

“THE GREATEST FAILURE IN ALL HISTORY”

I

WHY HAVE THE BOLSHEVIKI RETAINED POWER?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II

THE SOVIETS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III

THE SOVIETS UNDER THE BOLSHEVIKI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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