The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1922-03-29
SLAVERY (.
Of PEOPLE
LAID BARE
Continued from First Page.)


Bolsheviki-they do nothing by half.
AS soon as compulsory labor became
a law it was carried into effect with
q vengeance. Men and women,
young and old, thinly clad and in
torn shoes, or with only rags on
their feet. were indiscriminately
driven into the cold and sleet to
shovel snow or cut ice. Sometimes
they were sent in groups to the
forests to saw wood.
Disease Strikes Workers.
Pleurisy. pneumonia and tubercu-
losis resulted. 1t was only then that
the wiseacres In the Kremlin created
q new department for the distribution
of labor. This bureau decided upon
the physical fitness Of the workers.
classified and distributed them ac-
cording TO their trade.
Under such enslaving and degrad.
ing condition one need not be sur
prised that the people shirked the
work. because they hated ii and the
manner they We're driven TO 1t. They
began to look upon the Communist
state as the new leech that was sap
ping their life-blood The workers
of Petrograd, the most revolutionary
they who have borne the brunt of the
long struggle, who had SO heroically
defended the city against Yudenitch,
who starved and froZe beyond belief
what wonder il even they came
to loathe the false revolutionists and
everything connected with them.
Their Ideals Undermined.
Not theirs Is the fault-it Is the
cruel Bolshevik machine which an
dermined their ideals and faith. That
machine has enGendered a counter
revolutionary feeling which 1t will
take long to overcome.
l shall never forget certain scene
"a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet.
On that night the fate OF Cronstadt
was to be decided. After long
speeches by the leading Communists.
several workers and sailors asked
for the floor. A worker from The
arsenal speaks. He faces the chair
instead OF the audience. His voice
Is tense with suppressed emotion, his
eyes burn his whole frame shakes.
lie addresses the chairman VI the
Petrograd Soviet, Zinovieff.
Three years and half ago." he
says, you were denounced as a Ger
man spy. a traitor to the revolution.
bounded and prosecuted. We, the
workers and sailors of Petrograd,
saved you, fought for you, bled for
you and carried you up to the seat
you now occupy. We did that because
we believed that You were expressive
Of the people. Since then you and your
government have gone away from
us. Now you call US insulting names.
dare to decry US as counter-reVolu-
tionists. You imprison and shoot
us because we ask you to make good
the promises you had given us In
, the October revolution
do not know what became OF the
man. He may be in prison or dead
for his daring. His cry fell on deaf
cars. Yet 1t was the cry Of an agor-
lied spirit. the collective Russian
spirit, that had aspired to and at
tanned such heights during the revo-
luton and that Is now fettered by
the Bolshvik state.
Tyranny of the Chelta-
The Cheka, the all-Russian extra
ordinary commission, unquestionably
Is the blacklist measure OF the Boil
shevik regime. 1t was organized
power for the purpose of coping
with counter-revolution, sabotage and
speculation. Originally the Cheka
was controlled by the commissariat
of the interior, the Sovtets. and the
central committee OF the Commun-
Int party.
Gradually It became the most pow.
erful organization in Russia. II was
not merely a state within the state:
It was state over the state. The
whole OF Russia Ia covered TO the re-
hottest village with a net of Chekas.
Every department in the vast
bureaucratic machine has its ex-
traordinary commission, omnipotent
over the life and death OF the Rus
sian people. II would require the
master pen of a Dante to bring
home to the world the inferno ere
ated by this organization, the bru-
TALKING. disintegrating effect 1t has
upon the extraordinary commissions
themselves, the dread, distrust,
hatred suffering and death 1t has
wrought upon Russia.
In reading what Miss Goldman
says Of the Cleka. II must he borne
I'm mind that Lcpin recently an.
nounced that IL had been greatly
shorn OF its inquisitorial powers.
How far this Is true Is not known.
Perhaps II is another case Of Lenin,
as Miss Goldman puts it. crying
inca culpa" and "repenting,"J
Admitted Reign of Terror.
The head of the All-Russian Ex-
traordlnary Commission is Dzerzhin-
sky. He, together with his fellow
members OF its presidium, are
tried" Communists. In public
statement Dzerzhinsky said: we
are the representatives of organized
terror. We terrorize the
enemies OF the Soviet government.
We have the power to UNI
dcrtake raids. confiscate goods and
capital, perform arrests, question,
try, and condemn those we consider
guilty, and TO inflict the death pen
slty."
m other words. the Cheka is spy,
policeman, Judge, tailer, and execu-
toner, all in one. 1t Is the supreme
power from which there Is no re-
dress. and only rarely an escape. 1t