Those apologists who say that the Bolsheviki resorted to terrorism only after the assassination of Uritzky, and those others who say that terrorism was the answer to the intervention of the Allies, are best answered by the citation of official documentary evidence furnished by the Bolsheviki themselves. In the face of such evidence argument is puerile and vain. In February, 1918, months before either the assassination of Uritzky or the intervention of the Allies took place, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission issued the following proclamation, which was published in the _Krasnaya Gazeta_, official organ of the Petrograd Soviet, on February 23, 1918: The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and Speculation, of the Council of People’s Commissaries, brings to the notice of all citizens that up to the present time it has been lenient in the struggle against the enemies of the people. But at the present moment, when the counter-revolution is becoming more impudent every day, inspired by the treacherous attacks of German counter-revolutionists; when the bourgeoisie of the whole world is trying to suppress the advance-guard of the revolutionary International, the Russian proletariat, the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, acting in conformity with the ordinances of the Council of People’s Commissaries, sees _no other way to combat counter-revolutionists_, speculators, marauders, hooligans, obstructionists, and other parasites, _except by pitiless destruction at the place of crime_. Therefore the Commission announces that all enemy agents, _and counter-revolutionary agitators, speculators, organizers of uprisings or participants in preparations for uprisings to overthrow the Soviet authority, all fugitives to the Don to join the counter-revolutionary armies of Kaledin and Kornilov and the Polish counter-revolutionary Legions_, sellers or purchasers of arms to be sent to the Finnish White Guard, the troops of Kaledin, Kornilov, and Dovbor Musnitsky, or to arm the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie of Petrograd, _will be mercilessly shot by detachments of the Commission at the place of the crime_. PETROGRAD, _February 22, 1918_. ALL-RUSSIAN EXTRAORDINARY COMMISSION.