The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1920-04-15
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction
in Europe Follow the Great
l.. World War?
SOME LIGHT ON B0LsHEvlsM
Movement Not Anarchistic, as So
Many Seem to Enthusiastically
Is Best Described as "Con.
sistent Socialism,"
Article KILL.
BY FRANK

SNN w hohlAS NAlS l.
pal cause for the growing unrest my
answer would be bolshevism. The al
most universal attitude of big business
toward Russian bolshevism-an atti-
tude adopted by most of the govern
ments of Europeans been, and is,
Kill it; don't waste time examining 1t
it ISM worth trying to understand; no
good can come out Of It; it must be
fought; it isn't entitled to n trial.
lte1ms Of paper have been used to as
sail 1t. Captains of Industry and gov
eminent officials have Wed with each
other in making assault on it. Many
OF those h oppose bolshevism are
indignant if you ask them what it is
and why they oppose it. They charac-
terize it, attack it, resent it.. Great
heat has been shown in discussing it,
without throwing any light on the sub
ject. Absurd lies have been told
about bolsllevism. Later these unnec-
ess;ry and stupid lies have been ex-
posed, with the result that suspicion
has been bred, Unrest fed. The effect
upon the workers has been to increase
their hate for their employers and de-
stroy their already weakened faith in
government.
Whether bolshevism is right or
wrong, whether it is a good thing or a
bad thing. it is at least a definite po-
litical plan, capable of being examined,
measured, weighed and tested. 1t is
few Of the things it has been called.
1t is entitled to a hearing on it's mer-
abuse.
Bolshevism Not Anarchy.
Those VINO lead the campaign
against it frequently and confusingly
define it as anarchy. If there is n
thing that bolshevisrn is not, it is an
archy. Much controversy will be
avoided, many differences Of opinion
dissolved If we come to a fair and
open understanding of the bolshevik
program. One Of the great misfor-
tunes is that VIZ form opinions without
information, rush to judgments with
Il understanding, then s%tubbornly
| close our minds. Much of the discord
and strife Of life in big things, as we'll
as in little matters, is due to this
habit. Anarchy is not criminal law
lessness, notwithstanding the fact that
this is the popular m~isconception of
the term. Say anarchist" and the av-
erage man or woman to whom you say
it looks frightened, thinks OF a bomb
thrOWer, IL dynamiter, q firebrand.
Such a man is not an anarchist; he is
Il terrorist, Il criminal, a destruction
list, a murderer. Let us call a spade
a spade and be sure we know what a
spade is, and we will understand each
other better.
Anarchism is an old and respectable
philosophy. The anarchist is an indi-
vidualist. He is in favor Of u free life
for the individual. He is opposed to
turning owe the individuals power to
the state. He argues that great
power delegated to government limits
the growth and freedom of the indi-
vidual. He dreams of an ideal state in
which human beings will be so perfect
they need no law. His doctrine is an
enlargement, an eXaggeration Of the
idea that the government which gov
erns least governs best. He isn't a
lawbreaker. Tie is a law abOlisher. He
reasons that when murder leaves the
human heart there will be no occasion
for laws against killing; that the
statute against murder is only printed
words on the page Of a law book, ut
terly and entirely without meaning, or
existence, to the nan who is incapable
of killing his fellow man. He says
that we should develop u artistic
and moral sides and by evolution
gradually repeal one law after an
other until all law disappears. 1t is
pure idealism-it is a movement to-
ward perfection. 1t is the millennium
1t is poetry. kipling wrote it's con-
stitution when he wrote:
And only the Master shall praise hs,
And only the Master shall blame,
And no one shall work for money,
And no one shall work for fame.
But each for the joy of working,
Each in his separate star
Shall draw the hin as he sees it
For the God of Things as They Are.
Merely a Beautiful Dream.
Few people will contend that this
theory is anything more than a beauti
full dream. Probably the first and
greatest Of the anarchists was the
great Greek philosopher Zeno, from
Crete, the founder of the stole philoso
ply, who died go years B. c.. 1t is
disturbing to find dynamiters called
anarchists, and in the same breatl
hear included some Of the Creates
idealists that have ever trod the
earth. The very mention of the two
types in the same class gives respec
liability to the totally ugly, depraved
ignorant. lawless criminal.
I went to a standard authority fol
a common-sense definition of bolshev
isn. l was in Prague on my way W
toward the bolshevik front. l spen
m afternoon with President Thoma,