The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-24
From The Nation, Bolshevism, True and False.

Stephen Pichon, the French Foreign 1 Minister, of MT. Lloyd Georges re- ported proposal tha. the Soviet gov ernment of Russia be accorded some l klnd of official recognition at the | peace conference, may have the effect | of bringing to a head the discussion which for more than a year has been going on over the status of Russia among the nations. M Pichon's statement will be equally helpful, however, If 1t shall also serve in any degree to clear the air regarding the worldwide movement commonly la
 belled BOlshevism. Now that he has spoken out and will have to be an- swered, 1t ought to be a little easier
 to explain that Soviet and Bolshevik are not different names for the same
 essential thing; that a Soviet is a political institution, while the Bol- sheviki are political party; that all
 Of Soviet Russia is not Bolshevist, and large numbers of convinced sup porters of the Soviet regime are po- lithcal opponents of the Bolshevikt; and that the violence upon which the
 censored press of Europe and Ameri-
 ca insistently dwelIs is not the sole achievement of 0 government which,
 in spite of the scandalous treatment which other nations have accorded
 to it, is nevertheless gradually bring ing order and stability out of chaos. Whether or not such explanation and truth-telling will serve to re- habilitate Russia in the public esti-
 nation will depend a good deal, how | a IL. l.
 1t is admitted that Bolshevism, in the sweeping sense in which everybody Is now using the term, is only in part 1 the outcome of anything which the l Bolsheviki, or, for that matter, the l leaders of any phase of the Russian | revolution, have said or done To | charge the Russian Bolsheviks, as| 1 the press is fond of doing, with q
 share of responsibility for every con- siderable strike. whether in Switzerland 1 or Arge enina or the United States. or
 with the employment of un-nunber- 1 ed millions of rubles for the stirring 1 up of revolution in every continent, | or with secret connplicity in every 1 riot or killing that is accorded prom , thence on the front page of the
 newspaper, is to credit them with 1 propagandist organization and | brimming treasury which everyone
 who knows Russia knows that they
 do not possess. The widest tales of 1 German propa ganda and intrigue. ! ascrDbed to a government highly or 1 ganized and with great financial re- i source, are not more absurd than the 1 alleged worldwide, systematic, and l obviously very expensive activities of
 a. Russian government which at the i same moment is solemnly declared to 1 be hopelessly bankrupt, utterly dis l organized, opposed by a majority of i its own people, and violently at odds l even within itself.
 l The movement which is now de-
 nominated Boqshevism Is novel only 1 by virtue of its bitterness and its 1 wide extension. It !s the openly 1 violent phase of the longtime strug- | gle of the masses to free themselves l from the constrictions Of class and 1 privilege, to rid themselves of social l institutions which have held them in | subtecdon, and to seize the power to which they feel themselves entitled. 1 With some, in this country or that, ! the enemy against which they fight 1 Is landholding: with others, capi- 1 talism, or labor conditions, or prof. i teering, or the political machine. or
 the courts. Whatever the objective.
 however. it is always something
 which has seemed to the masses to 1 bar the way 10 progress, and which,
 having resisted hitherto all attempts i to dislodge it by moderate and accus- | toned means, must now be destroyed by force. Contemporary Bolshevism.
 in other words. is both method and 1 a philosophy. The thing which 1t i seeks to destroy Is a thing which 1t
 has come to regard as an evil, and the method of destruction is resorted
 to because the method of reform has ! failed. The new order which 1t seeks to install, on the other hand, is one
 which is believed to be good.
 For any who care to find them, the
 immediate causes of the present out
 bursts are not far to seek. They are
 to be found in the successful over throw of the government of ths Czar-an action which most enlight-
 ened people less than two years age
 were hailing with acclaim, and
 
 of BoIshevild. They are to be found l ill the unsetlement of national and
 individual life everywhere by the war, and in the indisposition of peo- ple of all classes to go back to the
 old routine. They are to be found in the practically universal sympathy
 for peoples who wish to be free, to live under governments of their own choosing, and to determine their po- l;tical and social future for them selves. and whose aspirations in these directions seem likely to be restrain ed or thwarted by the political schemes of greater powers. They are : tn be found in the enormous profits which favored businesses have made out of the war, in the laggard treat nIent of wage and hours in the in ordinate cost of living, in the appal- quent taxation, in the mu9Zling ot tke press and the denial of consti-
 tutional rights of assembly and free speech, in the replacement of de- | mocracy by autocracy in every demo.
 cratic state, and in the reachonary
 REA AgEbARHAEW HNH