will still cost it tens of thousands more. But this atrocious tragedy never makes Lenine hesitate, for he is the slave of dogma, and his partisans are his slaves.

Lenine does not know the people. But he does know-from his books -how to arouse the masses and how to excite their worst instincts. The working classes are to Lenine what minerals are to the metallurgist. Can

a Socialist-Nationalist state be made of this mineral? Indeed no, and Lenine doubts it. But why not try? What does Lênine risk if the attempt does not come off? Nothing much.

This description of Gorky's is all the more important because he himself shares a very large part of the Bolshevik theories he opposes only the violent and autocratic methods of Lenine. In another article in his paper, the Novoya Zhism, Gorky resumes his analysis of Lenine's cruel and despotic actions. Let us note that Gorky realizes fully that Bolshevism and the Soviets have become identical. This is important, for the pro-Bolsheviks of the New Republic and other similar American publications have endeavored to secure the recognition of the Bolsheviki by the round-about method of demanding the recognition of the Soviets-insisting that they are still two separate and distinct things! Gorky says:

Here begins the line of sharp division between myself and the chaotic, topsy-turvy activities of the Soviets. I regard intellectual Bolshevism to be of great value to the aspiring Russian soul. This intellectual Bolshevism or Bolshevism of ideas could train the Russian soul to boldly demand its own, stir it to readiness for struggle and activity, awaken this indolent spirit to the sense of initiative, and especially give it form and life.

But the practical Bolshevism of the anarchistic-communalistic visionaries which emanates from the Smolny Institute is injurious to Russia, and, above all, to the laboring class. The Soviets regard Russia as so much material for experiments. The Russian people is to them like the horse to the bacteriologist who injects the animal with the bacillus of typhus in order to produce the antitoxin. It is with this kind of brutality and this form of disregard of consequences that the Soviets treat the Russian people, without giving the least thought to the possibility that the tortured and half-starved creature may die in the process.

The social revolution that is planned can never be realized under the present conditions of life in Russia, for the reason that it is not possible to turn overnight into Soviets eighty-five per cent of the population of the country, which consists of peasants, living together with about twenty million of nomads from alien races.

My own opinion is that the Soviets are undermining and destroying the working class of Russia. They are setting up formidable towers of fearful and senseless complications that will stand in the path of the working class. Deaf to the voice of reason, they are bringing into existence unheard of insurmountable difficulties for the whole of the future course of the proletarians in their efforts to advance the progress of the war.

THE BOLSHEVIK PROGRAM "WRITTEN ON WATER"

Gorky says that there is practically no relation whatever between Bolshevik professions and Bolshevik practice. The professions are themselves sufficient to arouse the last degree of hostility on the part of every democrat-as we have shown above in quoting the Bolshevik's own statements. The practice

is infinitely worse. As Gorky says, the Bolshevik actuality can have no relation whatever with any sort of idealism-not even with the perverted, reactionary and anti-democratic idealism of the Bolsheviki themselves. Gorky says:

The proletarian is the bearer of a new culture. in these words were incorporated the beautiful dream concerning the triumph of righteousness, reason and love, the dream of the triumph of man over the beast. In the struggle for the realization of this dream thousands of men of all classes gave up their lives. Now the proletarian is at the helm, he has secured the coveted freedom to labor and create freely.

It is now in order and pertinent to ask: "How does this labor and the proletarian's freedom to create express itself?" The decrees of "the Government of People's Commissioners" are no more than newspaper feuilletons, no more, no less. It is that sort of literature which is written on water, and even though a real idea is now and then given expression to, the present circumstances forbid the realization of any idea.

What new things, then, is the revolution bringing? How is it transforming the bitter realities of Russian life? How much light is it bringing into the darkened lives of the Russian people?

For the period of the revolution ten thousand lynchings have already been accounted for. This is how democracy is meeting out judgment upon those who have in some way sinned against the new order.

During the days of the progress of drunkenness human beings were shot down like dogs and the cold-blooded destruction of human lives came to be a commonplace daily occurrence. In the newspaper "Pravda" the pogroms of the drunken mobs are written up as the "provocative acts of the bourgeois" which is clearly a misrepresentation, the employment of a pretty phrase which can only lead to the further shedding of blood.

Theft and robbery are increasing from day to day. The practice of the art of taking bribes is becoming more and more widely introduced and our new officials are already as well trained in the art as those who served under the Czar's government. The dubious individuals who have assembled around the Smolny Institute do not even hesitate to intimidate the frightened citizens. The coarseness of the representatives of the government of the "People's Commissioners" have aroused universal protest, and yet these representatives speak in grieved tones. The various petty officials who hover about the Smolny Institute appear to be drunk with a sense of conquest and regard the citizens as if they were the conquered, acting even as the misguided police of former days were in the habit of acting. They shout and scold and give commands to every one, just as of yore the village sheriffs would treat the inhabitants of the obscurest rural districts in Kanotop or Tchsuloma, and all this is done in the name of the "proletarian," in the name of the "social revolution." But in reality it represents only the triumph of the beast over man, the ascendancy of the Asiatic spirit which still dwells among us, the ugly growth upon our soul. Where, then, is that spirit which expressed itself in "the idealism of the Russian workingman" whom Carl Katusky has so enthusiastically eulogized?

Where is that which is supposed to be incorporated in the morality of socialism-the new morality?

I expect that one of our "realists in politics" will answer me contemptuously with the usual phrase: "What is it you wish? Do you not realize that this is the revolution?"

No! I do not recognize the unmistakable signs of the social revolution in this association of zoological instincts. It is a combination of the feelings of our lower selves, without socialism, without the spirit of socialism, without the psychology of socialism.

THE DEMORALIZATION OF THE MASSES THROUGH BOLSHEVISM

It cannot be said that Bolshevism has had no effect upon the Russian masses. No free election or any other evidence

has indicated that the Bolsheviki have a majority in Russia, or even in the big cities where they are strongest. But the power

that they hold through their control of the arsenals, the food supply, the railways, the firing squads and the secret police has enabled them to have an immense effect-of a deleterious kind. (They rule precisely as the Czar did. There can be no question that Nicholas II had 90 per cent, if not 95 per cent of the people against him. Yet the helplessness of a disarmed peasantry scattered over two Continents allowed him to continue his rule.) The effect of Bolshevism on the masses is described by Gorky as follows:

All the observers of the village today are unanimously of the opinion that the process of disintegration and demoralization is proceeding there with irresistible force. Having plundered the estates of the landowners, having shared out among themselves or simply destroyed the dead and living stocks on those estates, having even taken to pieces the buildings, the peasants are now preparing for war against one another for the division of the spoil. To this is added the calamity of famine. In some districts the population has long ago consumed all the available stocks of corn, including seed-corn; while in others the peasants, having had a good harvest, are hiding corn and even burying it in order not to share it with their starving neighbors. All this must lead, and in some places has already led, to a war of all against all, and to the most senseless chaos and universal destruction and murder.

In a bitter passage, terrible in its irony, Gorky concludes:

Yes, the process of self-discipline among the masses is proceeding with gigantic strides. The revolutionary army garrison at Sebastopol has already undertaken the last final struggle with the bourgeoisie. Without much ado they decided simply to massacre all the bourgeoisie who lived within their reach. They decided and did it. At first they massacred the inhabitants of the two most bourgeois streets in Sebastopol; then the same operation, in spite of the resistance of the local Soviet, was extended to Simferopol, and then the turn came to Eupatoria.

Apparently similar radical methods of class-war will soon be applied to Greater Russia, for we have already Mr. Bleichmann (the leader of the anarchists) energetically carrying on an agitation within the walls of the Petrograd Soviet in this sense.

In Russia conscience is dead. The Russian people, in fact, have lost all sense of right and wrong. "Pillage whatever there is to pillage." Such is the motto of the two groups of Bolsheviki. The Red Guards, constituted to attack the counter-revolutionaries, shoot without trial any one whom they suspect. Pillage in all its forms is the only thing which is organized. In Petrograd every Bolshevik citizen may share in the spoil. The churches, museums, shops and stores are robbed.

The

In the provinces still more tragic events are taking place. Almost incredible demands are made upon the population at a few hours' notice. The Crimea is undoubtedly the province which has suffered most. sailors of the Black Sea Fleet brutally murdered hundreds of their officers, and repeated these barbarous outrages in several towns, where they also murdered political prisoners. The scenes were such as to cause several cases of insanity among the terrorized population. The slaughter continues, and shooting is rife in the towns.

TROTZKY AND THE PROFESSIONAL BOLSHEVIKI

When the Bolsheviki secured control of the Russian Government by the aid of bayonets and a large supply of money, the source of which is still a matter of dispute, the party had from one hundred to two hundred thousand members according to statements of Lenine. These are the professional Bolshevists-and it is with them alone that the real power rests. After the Bolsheviki had been in power for seven or eight months, Trotzky made the following frank statement of the character of the Russian labor organizations which compose the Bolshevik movement:

Let us be honest. Who are the leaders of the labor organizations today? Partly worthy self-sacrificing and convinced people who therefore have learned nothing and are scarcely able to read and write, but partly all sorts of adventurers and swindlers who take advantage of every great chance to make a position for themselves.

Trotzky proceeds to explain that the educated classes (which the Bolsheviki have been prosecuting in such a frightful manner) refuse to furnish them the experts and administrators absolutely indispensable in every department of life today.

EVIDENCE OF A PRO-BOLSHEVIK PRIME MINISTER OF FINLAND

Oscar Tokoi, first constitutionally elected Prime Minister of Finland, who has just spent several months in Russia as an ally of the Bolsheviki, an alliance which he has since repudiated, sums up the situation as follows:

In comparison with the entire population only a small minority supports the Government, and, what is worse, to the supporters of the Government are rallying all the hooligans, robbers, and others to whom this period of confusion promises a good chance of individual action.

Even a great part of those who from the beginning could stay with the Government and who still are sincere social democrats, having seen all this chaos, begin to step aside, or to ally themselves with those openly opposing the Government. Naturally, as time goes by, there remains only the worst and the most demoralized element. Terror, arbitrary rule, and open brigandage become more and more usual and the Government is not able to prevent it.

Naturally only a small part of the people will remain backing such an

order.

A Socialistic society cannot be brought about by the force of arms, and cannot be supported by force of arms, but a Socialist order must be founded on a conscious and living will of an overwhelming majority of the nation which is able to realize its will without the help of arms.

I do not believe that at this time there is in Russia any social force which would be able to organize the conditions in the country. For that reason, to my mind, we should to begin with, frankly and honestly rely on the help of the allied powers.

The democratic traditions of these countries are some surety that the social order established by them will be a democratic one.

We must destroy the originator and the cause of the war, militarism, by its own arms, and on its ruins we must build, in harmony and in peace-not by force, as the Russian Bolsheviki want-a new and a better social order under the guardianship of which the people may develop peacefully and securely.

FIGHT BOLSHEVISM WITH DEMOCRACY1

The epitaph of Bolshevism was composed long ago, when it was written of the ancient Gauls that “They shook all States and founded none." The Bolsheviki have neither founded new States nor made any other addition to the constructive powers of mankind. Not a single institution or principle of enduring value can be discerned in the whole mass of Bolshevist propaganda, intrigue and experimentation. It is a negative, destructive, disintegrating force. It has shaken many States, sometimes, as in Russia, almost wholly destroying the entire structure of organized society and extinguishing the light of civilization. In those nations in which government has been less brutally tyrannical than Russia knew under the Prussianled Romanoffs, and in which the people have been accustomed to the self-discipline of a vastly greater degree of freedom and political responsibility, Bolshevism has been less influential for evil. It has been thwarted by the superior strength which governments based on widely diffused privileges and powers always enjoy.

It is easily comprehensible, but none the less gravely portentous, that in this country the first response to the challenge of Bolshevist propaganda has too generally taken the form of a resort to methods of oppression and repression resting on brute force and in no essential particular differing from those resorted to by the most despotic autocrats. The average American loves and cherishes the freedom and opportunity so widely diffused under our form of government. By no means blind to the defects and shortcomings of our political and economic arrangements; increasingly inclined to challenge those arrangements and to make cautious experiments with a view to perfecting them, the average intelligent American citizen, from whatever land he or his parents may have come, is passionately proud of American democracy, despite its imperfections. He is ready to improve it if he can, but he is determined to defend it, and is not ready to undertake experiments which will imperil it.

To the mind and temper here indicated Bolshevism, with its fierce, strident challenge and its reckless daring born of despair, is unintelligible and incomprehensible. Therefore it is a thing to be feared and hated; for men fear the thing they

1 From an article by John Spargo. McClure's. 51:10. September, 1919.