The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-07-13
By N. P. D.

SHcCiEt, says IL You ASK auSsian any
thing about Bolshesik rule, eihe reply is
almost sure to be "Nitehevo,n which he
translates into the vernacular, Il should
worry" '
But however people may differ regard
ing Bolsllevist theories, it does not seem
as if there could he disagreement much
longer regarding some Bolshevist facts.
Perhaps some of US still elamOr for the
truth about Russia because We are not
satisfied with the facts, as most recently
presented by Mr.. Embry, for example,
the American Consul at Omsk, but may
prefer the facts of Raymond Robins, as
more in accord with beautiful Bolshevist
theories. Can it be that taking all the
evidence together, we already know all the
truth it is possible to know about Rus.
STAT 1t is difficult TO assess chaos; it
can only be recorded.
After travelling 10000 miles through
Russia, from Vladivostok, With its entirely
new geological formation owing to the
hills Of supplies piled round about, to
Ekaterinburg where the Gar is supposed
to have been killed, Mr.. Alderman re-
ports that Bolstevism has not worked in
Russia. He says, on the contrary, it has
failed socially, industrially, economically,
politically and in every other nay. He
writes: If Bolshevism was intended 70
be the creation Of a new business life for
the world, it ihas failed in Russia. If
Lenine' expected it. ia be the beginning of
a new social order in which the working
people predominant, he has succeeded, but
at the frightfui cost OF universal chaos,
individual suffering, nationwide misery
and unemployment. BOlshevism has
brought about new order in Russia,
but the new nation is without life. In
Siberia, as in Russia, the nation is dead"
II.
Mr.. Alderman gives many facts to
prove his statement regarding the com
plete Generalization in Russia. You
might think from the pictures in the book
that all the railroads had been wrecked.
But trains run, and Mr.. Alderman de-
scribes the box ears in which men and
women are so crowded that the doors can
not be shut, and are packed 50 closely
that they were more uncomfortable than
steers riding from a Western ranch to
Kansas City or Omaha" If you can get
on a train at all, you can apparently 60
anywhere without a passport or even the
formality of ticket. What trains there
are are so crowded that what conductors
there are cannot collect what tickets there
may be. One If the must striking of the
many tories Mr.. Alderman tells to Illus
trate the complete collapse of business in
Russia is about gold mine in Ekaterin-
burg, managed by an American before the
Bolsheviki decreed him out of his job and
dcereed the mine the property of the
miners. Mr.. Alderman says:
"They were suddenly the owners of the
gold mine. Their dreams were realized.
They were no longer laborers; they were
owners! One might have thought that
WOEhCiS SuuuShlJ hitluc Joo'b OMhCIo VI q
rich mine would have organized and de-
veloped it; but they didn't. The mine
was their property. That satisfied them,
but the machinery was made in France
and was, therefore, a symbol Of capital
ism, so they destroyed all the machines
machines which had been manufactured
and brought to these shafts at an expense
Of 100000 francs. Then they began
working the mines in the most primitive
fashion until the labor became too diff
fcult, and one after another the miners
drifted away"
AS matter of fact, Mr.. Alderman says
the counter revolution of the working man
in Russia has not ennobled labor; it has
made leisure supreme"
III.
How then (Mr. Alderman anticipates
the question:, if Bolshevism is a failure