The franchise, which is supposed to include all those who work for their living, is a shamelessly artificial one. To take but one instance. In Irkutsk the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority in the Soviet. They thereupon declared that the franchise must be changed, it was too bourgeois. They succeeded in carrying through a new principle--that the franchise should belong to “physical labour” only. All such occupations as demanded education were ruled out. Some of the more enlightened Bolsheviks tried to obtain the vote for elementary school-teachers, but they were shouted down. Similar gerrymandering has taken place in every part of Russia. There is another peculiarity about the Soviets. They are elected by physical labour; but who controls them? In no case members of the working-classes. Lenin’s principle is that the working-man is too stupid to know what is good for him, and he must be told what to do. Soviet rule is a system by which a handful of political adventurers first impose themselves on a party and then impose this party on the State. [SN: A TYRANNY] Bolshevism is a tyranny, and like all other tyrannies has great need of secrecy. Do not let any English readers run away with the idea that because Lenin published the secret agreements of Kerenski, he is therefore an enemy of secret diplomacy himself. He concluded the treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, and the Russian people to this day do not know all that it pledged them to. At Irkutsk reporters had no right to be present at the debates of the Soviet, and such reports as did appear were officially prepared and often issued a month late. At that time Irkutsk was on the verge of starvation, and it was necessary to put heart in the people with a promise of plenty. So from time to time the Soviet officially stated that they had reached an agreement with China by which the frontier was to be opened. These statements were deliberate untruths. In a Parliament it would have been possible to force a debate on this point and make the Government explain why the frontier was still closed and declare its policy. In view of the fact that the Union of Democratic Control, the _Manchester Guardian_, Lee Smith, and others of that kidney have been such staunch supporters of the Bolsheviks, it is extremely important to realize that under Soviet rule there is no democratic control at all, and worse secrecy than there ever was under the Czar.