"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
We know as much now as our descendants will know a couple of centuries
hence concerning the great fundamental issues involved in this
controversy. More than seven centuries have elapsed since the signing
of Magna Charta at Runnimede. Upon every page of the history of the
Anglo-Saxon people, from that day in June, 1215, to the present, it is
plainly written that government which does not rest upon the consent
of the governed cannot satisfy free men. Throughout that long period
the moral and intellectual energy of the race has been devoted to the
attainment of the ideal of universal and equal suffrage as the basis
of free government. There are many persons who do not believe in that
ideal, and it is possible to bring against it arguments which do not
lack plausibility or force. Czar Nicholas II did not believe in that
ideal; George III did not believe in it; Nicolai Lenin does not believe
in it. Lincoln did believe in it; Marx believed in it; the American
people believe in it. At this late day it is not necessary to argue
the merits of democratic government. The consensus of the opinion of
mankind, based upon long experience, favors government resting upon
the will of the majority, with proper safeguards for the rights of the
minority, as against government by minorities however constituted.
Bolshevism, admittedly based upon the theory of rule by a minority
of the people, thus runs counter to the experience and judgment of
civilized mankind in every nation. In Russia a democratic government
conforming to the experience and judgment of civilized and free peoples
was being set up when the Bolsheviki by violence destroyed the attempt.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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