With a mental agility more admirable than either his controversial manners or his political morals, by a distortion of facts worthy of his mentors, but not of himself or of his reputation, Mr. Hard makes it appear that the Bolsheviki only suppressed the opposition newspapers after the middle of 1918, when, as he alleges, the opposition to the Bolsheviki assumed the character of “open acute civil war.” Mr. Hard admits that prior to this time there were suppressions and that “if any paper tried not merely to criticize the Lenin administration, but to utterly destroy the Bolshevik Soviet idea of the state, its editor was likely to find his publishing life quite frequently interrupted.” Now the facts in the case are as different from Mr. Hard’s presentation as a normal mind can well conceive. Mr. David N. Shub, a competent authority, made an exhaustive reply to Mr. Hard’s article, a reply that was an exposure, in the columns of _Struggling Russia_. Before reproducing Mr. Shub’s reply it may be well to set forth a few facts of record which are of fundamental importance: _On the very day on which the Bolsheviki published the decree on the establishment of the Soviet power, November 10, 1917, they published also a decree directed against the freedom of the press._ The decree proper was accompanied by a characteristic explanatory statement. This statement recited that it had been necessary for the Temporary Revolutionary Committee to “adopt a series of measures against the counter-revolutionary press of various shades”; that protests had been made on all sides against this as a violation of the program which provided for the freedom of the press; repressive measures were temporary and precautionary, and that they would cease and complete freedom be given to the press, in accordance with the widest and most progressive law, “as soon as the new régime takes firm root.” The decree proper read: I. Only those organs of the press will be suspended (_a_) Which appeal for open resistance to the government of workmen and peasants. (_b_) Which foment disorders by slanderously falsifying facts. (_c_) Which incite to criminal acts--_i.e._, acts within the jurisdiction of the police courts. II. Provisional or definitive suspension can be executed only by order of the Council of People’s Commissaries. III. These regulations are only of a provisional nature and shall be abrogated by a special ukase when life has returned to normal conditions.