A dispatch from Warsaw, dated April 10, 1919, stated that fugitives from Russia were pouring into that city, each of them bringing fresh tales of Bolsheviki horrors. The people in Russia, it was said, were being shot on the least provocation. For instance, men who remained in bed during the cold weather to keep warm because they had no fuel were accused of "discontent" and dragged into the streets and shot. Dead bodies, it was claimed, were left lying in the streets in heaps.
In order to maintain their popularity with the workingmen and with their hired mercenaries, the Bolsheviki paid their supporters enormous wages by means of an unchecked paper issue. In fact they have turned out so many tons of paper money, without financial guarantees of any sort, that today in Russia money has lost practically all its value.
"Struggling Russia," March 22, 1919, publishes an appeal issued in Petrograd and signed by the following organizations: Committee for the Defence of Freedom of the Press; Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party; Central Committee of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists; Central Committee of the Councils of Peasant Deputies and the Union of Workmen-Printers. Among other things the appeal says:
"Civil war has inflamed the whole country. Cities are being destroyed. The war of brother against brother is consuming the strength of our revolutionary democracy. The cannons, secured to guard the conquests of our revolution, shatter monuments, homes, and shrines of art. The cities of Russia fall at the hands of her own citizens....
"The nation is being driven towards ruin. The people are deprived of all liberties won by the revolution."
The April 26, 1919, issue of "Struggling Russia," under the caption, "City of the Dead," describes the deplorable condition of Petrograd as follows:
"Vladimir Bourtzev published in his paper, "Obscherye Dyelo," (The Common Cause), appearing in Paris, an interview with a well known pedagogist and journalist, C. L. Avaliani, who recently arrived from Petrograd. Mr. Avaliani lived in Petrograd during the bright, early days of the revolution and has also witnessed the tragic period of the Bolshevist rule:
""That Petrograd that used to draw to itself the leading social and scientific forces is no more. That living spring that sent upward a spray of rainbow hues and colors has gradually died out and is now finally extinct.
""There is no scientific activity, no research work, no literary or artistic life. All is leveled down and compressed under one Bolshevist lid. The only burning question is the problem of food.
The only blessed object of Bolshevist providence is the remaining bourgeois element, the only axis around which all their creative experiments revolve. On the one hand, those who toil,--and on the other the "parasites," and to the latter cla.s.s all the members of the liberal professions, all the literateurs, the lawyers and the clergy were a.s.signed. The sympathizers and upholders of the "rule of the Soviets" get a food ticket; all the others are sentenced to starvation.
""It is a rule that rests solely on bayonets! There is no popular confidence, no social support. It is all regarded as superfluous and a "burgeois" prejudice. The sole means of enlightenment and conviction are the bayonet and machine gun....
""A real Kingdom of the Dead! Petrograd is empty. Many have been summarily shot, but still more have died from exhaustion and disease, and some have fled. From a population of three million only 976,000 remain.""
"Struggling Russia," on April 5, 1919, published a detailed list of 76 places or districts in which there were uprisings against the Bolsheviki in the year 1918. In the year 1919 the revolutionary outbreaks seem to have become far more numerous.
Evidence as to the criminal nature of Russian Bolshevism was supplied by the Rev. Dr. George S. Simons, who, in February, 1919, testified before the Senatorial Committee as to his personal knowledge of the matter:
"There is a large criminal element in the Bolshevist regime. The fact that the criminal has a big part in the movement is proven by the destruction in a public bonfire of court records, the destruction of prisons and the liberation of all criminals who are sympathetic with the cause. We know it to be a fact that some of the worst criminal characters in all Russia hold positions under the Bolshevist Government, while others are helping as agitators."
A press dispatch dated Warsaw, April 10, 1919, states that it has been decided by the Bolsheviki regime that control of desire of impulse, even when self-imposed, is against the freedom of man, that as a consequence unbelievable orgies and indecencies take place, and that all restraint is at an end. The despatch states, futhermore[11], that the aristocrats remaining in Russia have lost all will and energy. They accept degradation or death with complete fatalism and do not even try to save their wives and daughters.
The deplorable condition of that part of Russia under Bolshevist rule was described in the Declaration adopted by the Socialist groups in Omsk on February 23, 1919. The Declaration says in part:
"The main prop of an agricultural country such as Russia princ.i.p.ally is, the peasant population, is pauperized, starving and is being driven under the banners of the Red Armies by lash and rifle. The numerically small cla.s.s of intellectuals is being shot down and exterminated. The cities have been handed over to the pillage and rule of Red Army troops. The prisons are overcrowded.
The enemies of the people have carried out their destructive program to the very end, and given the people, in place of bread, peace and freedom--a new inter-Russian war, the complete exhaustion of all the productive forces of the land, economic, industrial and railroad desolation, unemployment, a terrorizing reign of disorder and a lapse into barbarity."
The Council of the All-Siberian Co-operative a.s.semblies, in a Declaration brought to this country by C. A. Kovalsky, a prominent Russian writer and a member of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists, says:
"The All-Siberian Co-operative Movement--as the expression of the unity of the creative democratic elements--strives for the rehabilitation of the destroyed statehood of Russia....
"The immediate aims of our political activities must be--the support of the existing Omsk Government, which has proclaimed itself a democratic rule; the steering of its political course into democratic channels; the struggle with anti-democratic influences from the Right as well as with the destructive forces from the left; the strengthening of the ties between the rear and the fighting front, and the support of the army as the cultural force which is reconquering the violated rights of the people to the formation of a democratic state."
The Russian Co-operative Unions, having a membership of over 20,000,000, and representing the strongest economic organization in Russia, reaching every little town and village, announced through its representatives in New York, on May 20, 1919, its opposition to the Lenine regime and its support of the Provisional Russian Government at Omsk, Siberia, headed by Admiral Kolchak:
"When Russia fell under the Bolshevist Soviet rule, the representatives of the Co-operative Organizations, at the All-Russian Co-operative Congress in Moscow, April 18 to 24, 1918, rejected the principles and the methods of the Bolsheviki and declared the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, concluded by the Soviet authorities with the Austro-German, dishonorable and ruinous for Russia. In these terrible and trying times of b.l.o.o.d.y rule that our suffering and worn-out country is pa.s.sing through, the Co-operative Organizations of Siberia and North Russia serve as a unifying link for all the honest, healthy and State-preserving elements of the Russian democracy.
"The All-Siberian United Co-operatives are fully cognizant of the abnormal conditions in which the territories liberated from the Bolsheviki--the Ural, Siberia and the North Russian Provinces--find themselves, where in pain and anguish a new Russian Statehood is arising. Nevertheless, considering the unusual difficulties connected with the work of rebuilding and re-establishing legality and order in a land overburdened financially and economically, ravaged by civil war and hunger, and with a popular psychology corrupted by Bolshevism, the United Co-operatives recognize and support, until the formation of a new, ultimate government through the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, the Provisional Russian Government formed on Siberian territory and headed by Admiral Kolchak....
"We have, on our side, State wisdom, equity and justice. Our adversaries oppose us with terror, violence and complete social and economic ruin."
In the early part of the year 1919, the report reached America that the Bolshevist authorities were nationalizing women. The Socialists of our own country, who are far from being noted for their reliability and truthfulness, have, of course, denied the charge, in order that the Lenine regime, which they support and wish to see extended to our own land, might not have its already terribly sullied name dishonored still more. The Bolshevists are far from being saints, and a "few" of their "shortcomings" have been pointed out in this chapter.
Certainly the Lenine Government is absolutely lax in matters appertaining to s.e.x relations. It has fully legalized free love, as we learn from the No. 2 issue of the radical Los Angeles magazine, "More Truth About Russia." This magazine, of course, defends the Bolshevists, and on page 6 of the above-mentioned issue quotes several of the decrees of the Lenine Government on the matter of marriage and divorce. Among the decrees we read:
"Marriage is annulled by the pet.i.tion of both parties or even one of them." All that is necessary to annul a marriage is the expressed desire of either party. The party is, of course, then free to marry again and remain married till another partner is desired. Hence free love is legalized. A government that legalizes free love may be expected to nationalize those women who do not wish to marry or who are unable to secure partners by the time they have reached a certain age.
"The Call," New York, April 2, 1919, on its editorial page reprinted an apology of the English publication, "New Europe," which in a previous issue had given as the authority for its charge of the nationalization of women in Russia an article in the Soviet paper "Izvestija:"
"I have made particular inquiries among friends recently arrived from Russia," says Dr. Harold Williams, "New Europe"s" collaborator, "as to the alleged nationalization of women, and they have all a.s.sured me positively that they have never heard or read of such a decree."
Those "friends," whoever they were, were possibly Bolsheviki themselves, and are not said to have denied that the women were nationalized, but merely that they had never heard or read of the "decree." Lots of things are enforced by authorities without decrees. The Bolshevist authorities may have had no decrees for the murder of the many thousands of innocent citizens whom they tortured and put to death.
Dr. Harold Williams states, moreover, that it is certain that "the Central Bolshevist Government has issued no order of the kind" (i.e., of nationalization), but he does not deny that in different places the local Bolshevist authorities may have nationalized women.
Further on it is admitted that not the official national Soviet organ, but the local Vladimir Soviet organ, "Izvestija," was the Bolshevist paper which stated that the Bolshevists of Vladimir had nationalized women.
The article in "New Europe," republished in "The Call," concludes with these words:
"As this puts an entirely different complexion on the matter, and as the Central Moscow Government cannot be held responsible for the lucubrations of every local committee, we desire to withdraw unreservedly the imputation and to express our regret for the mistake."
This article in the March 13, 1919, issue of "New Europe," which thus apologizes for the "mistake" that it claims it made in a previous issue, has been quoted far and wide by American Socialists and other radicals of our country. Yet witnesses who were questioned at the Senatorial investigation at Washington, in February, 1919, attested to the nationalization by the Bolshevists.
On February 7, 1919, the Orthodox Greek Archbishop of Omsk and other clergy of the Russian Church sent a letter to Pope Benedict XV, mentioning, with other crimes and abuses of the Bolshevists, the socialization of women.
A press despatch dated Warsaw, April 10, 1919, stated the following concerning the condition of women in Russia:
"The nationalization of women is becoming quite general. The Bolsheviki have declared war on family life and consideration for one another"s mother or sister is forbidden. All must be treated alike. The most terrible thing is that the women themselves have accepted this nationalization and very little protest is made. This applies to every cla.s.s. In certain cases, however, a hitch has occurred. Even Bolshevism cannot master human nature, and it has been found that a masculine jealousy occasionally stands in a way.
Certain men have refused to nationalize a particular woman and as a result Bolshevik has fought Bolshevik with considerable force."
An a.s.sociated Press despatch from London, April 15, 1919, gives lengthy details regarding the nationalization of women, and even the opposition offered to it:
"The law providing for the nationalization of women in Northeast Russia has been suspended in one province as a result of popular outcry, according to information reaching London today, from Stockholm.
"The Commissary of Vladimir has, by decree, appointed a committee of women, who are to inquire into operations of the law and make a report with the least possible delay. His action has been approved by the local Soviet.
""The Krasnaya Gazeta" publishes an account of the results of nationalization. The system provides that every girl on reaching the age of eighteen must register her name in the Bureau of Free Love, after which she is compelled to select a partner from among men between the ages of 19 and 50 years old. The law led to lamentable confusion, says the "Gazeta," in judicial notions as to personal inviolability.
"A few days after the Soviet"s decree, which women very generally ignored, two men known to n.o.body, arrived in the town and seized the two daughters of a well-known non-bourgeois comrade, declaring they had chosen them as wives and that the girls without further ceremony must submit, as they had not observed the registration rule.
"Comrades Yablonovski and Guriakin, who sat as judges on the claim, decided that the men were right, and the girls were carried off.
They have not been heard of since by the village folk.
"This, says the Gazeta, was done in the name of the nationalization of women.
"Many other instances of the fantastic operation of the law, not to speak of its inhumanities, are cited by the Gazeta. Enthusiasts for nationalization, naturally all males, raid whole villages, seize young girls, and demand proof that they are not over 18. As this proof is difficult to give, many of the girls are carried off, and there have been suicides and murders as a result.
"In the town of Kovrov, a campaign without parallel since the Trojan war was waged between the vengeful relatives of an abducted nationalized girl and her persecutors.
"In this town the "register of nationalized women" was opened on December 1, but up to February 1 last only two women, both over 40, and neither of whom had ever been married, registered themselves as willing to accept the first husband the state sent along.