The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1919-05-30


this respect the Socialist press has
suffered most of all. Even the pa
pers of the Internationalist Men
sheviki, like Martov's, have been
suppressed and closed down, and
the unfortunate editors thrown into
prison or forced to flee for their
lives.
IS. The right OF holding public
meetings has been abolished. The
vote has been taken away from
everyone except the workmen in
the factories and the poorer serv-
ants, and even amongst the work
men those who dare to vote against
the Bolsheviki are marked down by
the Bolshevist secret police as
counter-revolutionaries, and are
fortunate if their worst fate is to
be thrown into prison, of which in
Russia today it may truly be said,
many go in but few come out
rs. The worst crimes of the Boil
sheviki have been against their So
cialist opponents. OF the countless
executions which the Bolsheviki
have carried out a large percentage
has fallen on the heads of Socialists
who had waged lifelong struggle
against the old regime, but who are
now denounced as counter-revol
tionaries merely because they dis
approve of the manner in which
the Bolsheviki have discredited So
cialism.
IS. The Bolsheviki have abol-
ished even the most primitive forms
of justice. Thousands of men and
women have been shot without
even the mockery of a trial, and
thousands more are left to rot in
the prisons under conditions to find
parallel to which one must turn
to the darkest annals of Indian or
Chinese history.
So The Bolsheviki have restor-
ed the barbarous methods of tor
ture The examination of prison
ers frequently takes place with a
revolver at the unfortunate prison
er's head.
81. The Bolsheviki have estab-
lished the odious practice of taking
hostages. Still worse, they have
struck at their political opponents
through their women folk. When
recently a long list Of hostages was
published in Petrograd, the Boil
sheviki seized the wives of those
men whom they could not find and
threw them into prison until their
husbands should give themselves
up.
rs. The Bolsheviki who destroy
ed the Russian army, and who have
always been the avowed opponents
of militarism, have forcibly mobil-
lied officers who do not share their
political views, but whose technical
the threat of immediate execution,
have forced them to fight against
their fellow-countrymen in a civil
war of unparalleled horror.
80. The avowed ambition of
Lenine is to create civil warfare
throughout Europe. Every speech
of Lenines is a denunciation of
constitutional methods, and a glo-
rification of the doctrines of phys
zeal force. With that object in view
he is destroying Systematically both
by execution and by deliberate
starvation every form of opposition
to Bolshevism. This system of
terror is aimed chiefly at the Lib
erals and non Bolshevist Socialists,
whom Lenine regards as his most
dangerous opponents.
40. In order to maintain their
popularity with the workingmen
and with their hired mercenaries,
The Bolsheviki are paying their sup
porters enormous wages by means
of an unchecked paper issue, until
today money in Russia has natural
ly lost all value. Even according
to their own figures, the Bolshev-
iki's expenditure exceeds the rev
enue by thousands of millions of
roubles per annum.
These are facts for which the
Bolsheviki may seek to find an eX-
cuse, but which they cannot deny"
The so-called Soviet government
has established in the greater part
Of Russia it controls a regime of
murder and starvation against
which the Russian democrats and
socialists are waging an open war
! The American Socialist Party Dre-