The Daily Alaska empire. [volume] (Juneau, Alaska) 1926-1964, 1951-01-18
7 H EsE DAYS
GEORGE E. SUKClSkI
THE WHY OF 1T

Purcell Mckinney of Steelton
Pennsylvania, wrote me a long AM
interesting letter, the gist of which
is:
g. From the spelling of your
name, it is to be assumed that your
origin is of Polish or Russian: is
it that you are psychologically af-
fected by this background to the
extent that you use your column to-
try and prove how much you are
against anything Russian or Com
munistic? . are you fair in your
attacks upon people who have the
will and right to their thoughts re-
CARELESS of how they may disagree
with yours or others?"
The why of all this is quite simple.
In 1917, when Russian rebelled
against the Gar and his court,
against the power of Rasputin and
the corruption of nobility, the many,
like myself, felt that free, repre-
sentative government, that liberty
had pierced the last great auto
cratic country. Turkey had become
free country in 1908; China in
1911; now Russia had joined the
march.
1 was then a student at Column
bia University and sought for means
to go to Russia to fight and labor
for liberty. l got a job as a cor
respondent, sailed on the old Oscar
II and, after a short stay in Sweden,
arrived in Petrograd. There I be-
came editor of the Russian Daily
News, an English-language news
paper.
! AS working newspaperman,
charged with the task of reporting
daily on events and publishing them
in the city which was then t h e
capital of the country, / had many
opportunities to come close to the
situation as it developed.
I witnessed the struggles of
Kerensky against both the Com
munists and the Czarists. I was pre-
sent at the seizure of power by the
Bolsheviks. I saw Lenin, Trotsky
and Stain (who was then not so
importantly at close quarters. had
to understand the movements which
were influencing millions of human
beings. 1 lived under the Commun-
lists from October, 1917, to March,
1918.
The heartbreak of it was that
there was no will for liberty among
the Marxists. They only sought
power. Their own phrase for it was
that they took power"
I was present at all the sessions
of the constituent assembly which
had been called before the Bolshe-
viks took over They laughed at the
idea of the elected representatives
of the people determining the basic
law of the country. They sent sailors
to break it up.
| I witnessed the suppression of
every organ of the people = the
church. the press, meetings, political
parties. Quickly they restored the
despotism of the Cars. 1t was q
despotism without restraint
Human freedom was a value
which I had taken for granted.
was born in the United States,
where I had never felt the force of
government on my back like lash.
/ knew no class, no race, no religi-
Gus struggle. My father went to his
synagogue on the sabbath and we
children walked behind him, as our
Irish and German neighbors went
| to their churches on Sunday. In
! America, even God could be taken
for granted.
1t was in Siberia that the ques-
ton of God and country and human
liberty became an issue that had to
be worked out. I had seen the de-
| graduation of man. he'd seen men
and women who did not fear death,
but who did fear life.
| For 10 years after that lived
and worked in China. Many of the
name you now read about, knew
|, as young men and women, my own
age. My associations with Sun Vat
Sen were close knew Chang Kali
Shek before he became figure.
! / knew many of the present Com
munist leaders as far back as 1919
when was adviser to the Shanghai
Students Union, whose scroll still
hangs on my wall.
But the question of human liberty
and country and God was not an
swered in China Our troops today
speak of the brutality Of the
Oriental, their habit of shooting the