Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial DemocracySpargo, John
History
Bolshevism: The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
Spargo, John
Communism -- Soviet Union; Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921
convicted and imprisoned as a German spy in 1910; Lepinsky, formerly in the
Czar's secret police; and Gualkine, friend of the unspeakable Rasputin, are
some of the other men who have been closely identified with the
"proletarian regime" of the Bolsheviki.[46] The man they released from
prison and placed in the important position of Military Commander of
Petrograd was Muraviev, who had been chief of the Czar's police and was
regarded by even the moderate members of the Provisional Government, both
under Lvov and Kerensky, as a dangerous reactionary.[47] Karl Radek, the
Bohemian, a notorious leader of the Russian Bolsheviki, who undertook to
stir up the German workers and direct the Spartacide revolt, was, according
to _Justice_, expelled from the German Social Democratic party before the
war as a thief and a police spy.[48] How shall we justify men calling
themselves Socialists and proletarian revolutionists, who ally themselves
with such men as these, but imprison, harry, and abuse such men and women
as Bourtzev, Kropotkin, Plechanov, Breshkovskaya, Tchaykovsky, Spiridonova,
Agounov, Larokine, Avksentiev, and many other Socialists like them?
In surveying the fight of the Bolsheviki to establish their rule it is
impossible to fail to observe that their chief animus has been directed
against other Socialists, rather than against members of the reactionary
parties. That this has been the fact they do not themselves deny. For
example, the "People's Commissary of Justice," G.I. Oppokov, better known
as "Lomov," declared in an interview in January, 1918: "Our chief enemies
are not the Cadets. Our most irreconcilable opponents are the Moderate
Socialists. This explains the arrests of Socialists and the closing down of
Socialist newspapers. Such measures of repression are, however, only
temporary."[49] And in the Soviet at Petrograd, July 30, 1918,
according to _Pravda_, Lachevitch, one of the delegates, said: "The
Socialist-Revolutionists of the Right and the Mensheviki are more dangerous
for the government of the Soviets than the bourgeoisie. But these enemies
are not yet exterminated and can move about freely. The proletariat
must act. We ought, once for all, to rid ourselves of the
Socialist-Revolutionists of the Right and of the Mensheviki."
In this summary of the Bolsheviki war against democracy, it will be
observed, no attempt has been made to gather all the lurid and fantastic
stories which have been published by sensational journalists. The testimony
comes from Socialist sources of the utmost reliability, much of it from
official Bolshevist sources. The system of oppression it describes is twin
brother to that which existed under the Romanovs, to end which hundreds of
thousands of the noblest and best of our humankind gave up their lives.
Under the banner of Social Democracy a tyranny has been established as
infamous as anything in the annals of autocracy.
"_O Liberty, what monstrous crimes are committed in thy great
name!_"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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