The Connecticut labor press., 1920-01-03
BOLSHEVISM HAS NO USE FOR AN
 UNMUZZLED PRESS
First Step in Establishing Rule in Any Large City Is
 Suppression.
EDITORS ARE EXECUTED
Only Publications Favorable to Bolshevism Allowed to Exist.
 Strictly Autocratic Movement.

Fully realizing the power yielded by a free press Bolsheviks, after estab- fishing their rule in any large city, al ways first of all suppressed all daily papers and periodicals, and then seized the printing offices. The same hap pened in Kharkov. When the Bolshe- vists seized power in November, 1917, a detachment of Red Guards drove up in a motor car with a machine-gun to the office of the democratic paper, Yuzhny Krai (The Southern Region) !, declared the paper suppressed, as being of ''bourgeois" tendency and ordered the staff to disperse.
 The same fate befell other Kharkov papers, which were replaced by the Izvestia and other Bo1shevist papers, all preaching a rnerciless war on the bour- geoisie. The editor of the Yuzhny Krai was under arrest for over week, while the editor of Go1oss Yuga was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal, but thanks to the defense of the workmen, was let off safely.
 The superintendents of the Press were the 'press-commissaries," of whom one, a certain Reichstein, writing in the Donetsky Proletary, defined his attitude towards the bourgeois Press" by the words: One knee at their chest, our hand at their throat"
 After the Bo1sheviks were expelled, the daily papers again reapreared, until the second Bo1shevist occupation, which took place December, 1918.
 The officers and printing works were again raided by armed bands of Red Army men, the papers suppressed, and the printing machines used for printing of the Bo1shevist Izvestia Communard, and Krasnaia Zvesda.
 The only non-Bolshevist socia1-demo cratic paper, Nash Goloss, which ex- isted for some time was also closed by Trotsky on the plea that its articles demoralized the Red Army.
 The private houses of the newspaper staff were all raided and 1oote1. clothes and other possessions carried off 1; books, such as editions of the Russian classics, were torn and scattered on the floor.
 The sub-editor of the Novaia Rossia was sentenced to death without trial by the "Chresvychaika" Extraordinary Commission for fighting counter-revolu- tion). His :nutilated body. with several ribs broken and half the skull sliced off by a sword cut, was subsequently found in a ravine on the outskirts of Khar- kov Many others were carried off as hostages.
 In January, 1919, decrees were pub 1ished, establishing state monopoly of all advertisements, and also a Central Ukrainian Press Agency for supplying the population with printed matter. The editorial organ of the executive com mittee was named the Centropress; moreover, the Peoples Economic Coun- Gil established special polygraphic and paper sections and the Commissariat of T~ | 1:,l,: ~441~
 The result was that, III order to buy iting cards, one had to obtain first special spec permit from the polygraphic section with an indication of the print ing office and the place where to buy the paper, for obtaining which another permit was needed from the paper sec ton.
 In March, 1919, the Provincial Execu- tive Committee issued the following order:
 "All printed matter may not appear without the preliminary authorization of the Press Bureau of the Executive Committee All printed matter must be submitted to the bureau before pub lication."
 No magazine or periodical was al lowed to appear otherwise than through a special section of the Executive Committee, called "Ukzentrag'', which received and distributed Cor sup pressed) all the copies of papers and periodicals, after these had been print ed. Thus 1,700 copies of No. 1 of the magazine Goloss Rabochago, delivered to the "Ukzentrag," never saw the light, and were suppressed wholesale.
 Needless to say that the Bo1shevist Press was full of indictments to class hatred and attacks, not only on the bourgeoisie but also on the workmen and peasants, when they showed any lack of sympathy with the Rolsheviki
 The Izvestia daily threatened the "bourgeoisie" with the vengeance of the proletariat: Let them know that over each bourgeois there towers like an archangel a proletarian ready to chop off his head, however thick his neck may be-"
 No. 119 of the Izvestia contained an article directed against the workmen of the locomotive works, of the Helferich- Sade works, and the printers who had not responded to the mobilization crder: Those workshops are packed full of traitors, who must be burnt out with red-hot iron. We must use the langu- age of the bayonet and machine-gun to such vermin." This B1ack-Hun- dred gang of yellow printers union must be dealt with together with the bourgeoisie-to the concentration camp with it"-The Democrat, London