"The Greatest Failure in All History": A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in RussiaSpargo, John
History
"The Greatest Failure in All History": A Critical Examination of the Actual Workings of Bolshevism in Russia
Spargo, John
Communism -- Russia
The meeting welcomes the fact that mass terror is being used
against the White Guards and higher bourgeois classes, and
declares that every attempt on the life of any of our leaders
will be answered by the proletariat by the shooting down
not only of hundreds, as the case is now, but of thousands
of White Guards, bankers, manufacturers, Cadets, and
Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right.
On the following day, September 19th, the same journal quoted Zinoviev
as saying:
To overcome our enemies we must have our own Socialist
Militarism. We must win over to our side 90 millions out of
the 100 millions of population of Russia under the Soviets.
_As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them; they must be
annihilated._
Reference has already been made to the fact that the Council of the
People’s Commissaries ordered that the Extraordinary Commission publish
the names of all persons sentenced to be shot, with particulars of
their cases, and the further fact that the instruction was ignored. It
is well known that great friction developed between the Extraordinary
Commissions and the Soviet power. In many places the Extraordinary
Commissions not only defied the local Soviets, _but actually suppressed
them_. Naturally, there was friction between the Soviet power and
its creature. There were loud protests on the part of influential
Bolsheviki, who demanded that the _Chresvychaikas_ be curbed and
restrained and that the power to inflict the death penalty be taken
from them. That is why the resolution of September 5th, already quoted,
was passed. Nevertheless, in practice secrecy was very generally
observed. Trials took place in secret and there was no publication,
in many instances, of results. Reporting a meeting of the Executive
Committee of the Moscow Soviet, which took place on October 16, 1918,
_Izvestia_, the official Bolshevist organ, contained the following in
its issue of the next day:
The report of the work of the All-Russian Extraordinary
Commission was read at a secret session of the Executive
Committee. _But the report and the discussion of it were held
behind closed doors and will not be published._ After a debate
the doors of the Session Hall were thrown open.
From an article in the _Severnaya Communa_, October 17, 1918, we
learn that the Extraordinary Commission “has registered 2,559
counter-revolutionary affairs and 5,000 arrests have been made”; that
“at Kronstadt there have been 1,130 hostages. Only 183 people are left;
500 have been shot.”
Under the heading, “The Conference of the Extraordinary Commission,”
_Izvestia_ of October 19, 1918, printed the following paragraph:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account