“While I was still British chaplain of Odessa the city was deluged with blood. When the Bolshevist elements, grafting on to their main support the 4,000 criminals released from the city gaols, attempted to seize the town, people of education, regardless of social position, offered what armed resistance was in their power. Workmen, shop assistants, soldiers, professional men, and a handful of officers fought for freedom and liberty through the streets of the great port for three days and nights against the bloody despotism of the Bolshevists. Tramcars were overturned to make barricades, trenches dug in the streets, machine-guns placed in the upper windows of houses to move the thoroughfare with fire. The place became an inferno. The Bolshevists were victorious. On capturing Odessa Railway Station, which had been defended by a few officers and a number of anti-Bolshevist soldiers, the Bolshevists bayoneted to death the 19 wounded and helpless men laid on the waiting-room floor to await Red Cross succour.“Scores of other men who fell wounded in the streets also became victims to the triumphant Bolshevist criminals. The majority of these wretched and unhappy sufferers completely disappeared. Inquiries at the hospitals and prisons revealed the fact that they were not there, and no trace of them was to be found. A fortnight later there was a terrible storm on the Black Sea, and the bodies of the missing men were washed up on the rocks of Odessa breakwater and along the shore; they had been taken out to sea in small boats, stones tied to their feet, and then been dropped over alive into deep water. Hundreds of others were captured and taken on board the Almaz and the Sinope, the largest cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet. Here they became victims of unthinkable tortures.“On the Sinope General Chormichoff and some other personal friends of my own were fastened one by one with iron chains to planks of wood and pushed slowly, inch by inch, into the ship’s furnaces and roasted alive. Others were tied to winches, the winches turned until the men were torn in two alive. Others were taken to the boilers and scalded with boiling steam; they were then moved to another part of the ship and ventilating fans set revolving that currents of cold air might blow on the scalds and increase the agony of the torture. The full names of 17 of the Sinope victims were given me in writing by members of their families or theirpersonal friends. These were lost later when my rooms were raided, my papers seized, and I myself arrested and thrown into prison.“The house in the Catherine Square in which I was first in captivity afterwards became the Bolshevists’ House of Torture in which hundreds of victims were done to death. The shrieks of the people being tortured to death or having splinters of wood driven under the quick of their nails were so agonizing and appalling that personal friends of my own living more than a hundred yards away in the Vorontsoffsky Pereulok were obliged to fasten their double windows to prevent the cries of anguish penetrating into the house. The horror and fear of the surviving citizens was so great that the Bolshevists kept motor lorries thundering up and down the street to drown the awful screams of agony wrung from their dying victims.“This House of Torture remains as much as possible in the condition in which the Bolshevists left it and is now shown to those who care to inspect its gruesome and blood-bespattered rooms.“Week by week the newspapers published articles for and against the nationalization of women. In South Russia the proposal did not become a legal measure, but in Odessa bands of Bolshevists seized women and girls and carried them off to the Port, the timber yards, and the Alexandrovsky Park for their own purposes. Women used in this way were found in the mornings either dead or mad or in a dying condition. Those found still alive were shot. One of the most awful of my own personal experiences of the New Civilization was hearing at night from my bedroom windows the frantic shrieks of women being raped to death in the park opposite. Screams of shrill terror and despair repeated at intervals until they became nothing but hoarse cries of agony like the death calls of a dying animal. This happened not once, or twice, but many times. Never to the day of my death shall I forget the horror of those dreadful shrieks of tortured women, and one’s own utter powerlessness to aid the victims or punish the Bolshevist devils in their bestial orgies.”(“Bolshevism, Reign of Torture at Odessa,” by the Rev. R. Courtier-Forster, late British Chaplain at Odessa and the Russian Ports of the Black Sea. Reprinted from The Times, December 3, 1919, pp. 2, 3 and 4.)
“While I was still British chaplain of Odessa the city was deluged with blood. When the Bolshevist elements, grafting on to their main support the 4,000 criminals released from the city gaols, attempted to seize the town, people of education, regardless of social position, offered what armed resistance was in their power. Workmen, shop assistants, soldiers, professional men, and a handful of officers fought for freedom and liberty through the streets of the great port for three days and nights against the bloody despotism of the Bolshevists. Tramcars were overturned to make barricades, trenches dug in the streets, machine-guns placed in the upper windows of houses to move the thoroughfare with fire. The place became an inferno. The Bolshevists were victorious. On capturing Odessa Railway Station, which had been defended by a few officers and a number of anti-Bolshevist soldiers, the Bolshevists bayoneted to death the 19 wounded and helpless men laid on the waiting-room floor to await Red Cross succour.
“Scores of other men who fell wounded in the streets also became victims to the triumphant Bolshevist criminals. The majority of these wretched and unhappy sufferers completely disappeared. Inquiries at the hospitals and prisons revealed the fact that they were not there, and no trace of them was to be found. A fortnight later there was a terrible storm on the Black Sea, and the bodies of the missing men were washed up on the rocks of Odessa breakwater and along the shore; they had been taken out to sea in small boats, stones tied to their feet, and then been dropped over alive into deep water. Hundreds of others were captured and taken on board the Almaz and the Sinope, the largest cruiser of the Black Sea Fleet. Here they became victims of unthinkable tortures.
“On the Sinope General Chormichoff and some other personal friends of my own were fastened one by one with iron chains to planks of wood and pushed slowly, inch by inch, into the ship’s furnaces and roasted alive. Others were tied to winches, the winches turned until the men were torn in two alive. Others were taken to the boilers and scalded with boiling steam; they were then moved to another part of the ship and ventilating fans set revolving that currents of cold air might blow on the scalds and increase the agony of the torture. The full names of 17 of the Sinope victims were given me in writing by members of their families or theirpersonal friends. These were lost later when my rooms were raided, my papers seized, and I myself arrested and thrown into prison.
“The house in the Catherine Square in which I was first in captivity afterwards became the Bolshevists’ House of Torture in which hundreds of victims were done to death. The shrieks of the people being tortured to death or having splinters of wood driven under the quick of their nails were so agonizing and appalling that personal friends of my own living more than a hundred yards away in the Vorontsoffsky Pereulok were obliged to fasten their double windows to prevent the cries of anguish penetrating into the house. The horror and fear of the surviving citizens was so great that the Bolshevists kept motor lorries thundering up and down the street to drown the awful screams of agony wrung from their dying victims.
“This House of Torture remains as much as possible in the condition in which the Bolshevists left it and is now shown to those who care to inspect its gruesome and blood-bespattered rooms.
“Week by week the newspapers published articles for and against the nationalization of women. In South Russia the proposal did not become a legal measure, but in Odessa bands of Bolshevists seized women and girls and carried them off to the Port, the timber yards, and the Alexandrovsky Park for their own purposes. Women used in this way were found in the mornings either dead or mad or in a dying condition. Those found still alive were shot. One of the most awful of my own personal experiences of the New Civilization was hearing at night from my bedroom windows the frantic shrieks of women being raped to death in the park opposite. Screams of shrill terror and despair repeated at intervals until they became nothing but hoarse cries of agony like the death calls of a dying animal. This happened not once, or twice, but many times. Never to the day of my death shall I forget the horror of those dreadful shrieks of tortured women, and one’s own utter powerlessness to aid the victims or punish the Bolshevist devils in their bestial orgies.”
(“Bolshevism, Reign of Torture at Odessa,” by the Rev. R. Courtier-Forster, late British Chaplain at Odessa and the Russian Ports of the Black Sea. Reprinted from The Times, December 3, 1919, pp. 2, 3 and 4.)
The Protocols speak ofconcealedexecutions as well as of open violence when making use of the weapon of terrorism to secure political domination. The Bolsheviki closely paralleled the Protocols in this respect.
While it is true that the number of victims of outright executionby shooting, drowning, etc., have run into very large figures, they are undoubtedly few in comparison with the number who have been deliberately starved by the Bolsheviki. In pursuance of their avowed policy of exterminating the bourgeois class the Soviet government divided the people into four categories with respect to the receipt of food, the bourgeoisie being placed in the last two categories as to which the allowance of food was insufficient to support life. A report by “Mr. E.” found in the British White Book, “Russia No. 1” (1919), relating to the conditions in February, 1919, shows that the last two categories have been done away with altogether. The report states that the Bolsheviki have published statistics “showing that the fourth category was not necessary, as there were so few members.” “This proves,” he says, “that the 4th category people have either been exterminated or have been forced to work under the Bolsheviks in order to live.” The same witness states that the amount of food given to the first category was constantly varying according to the supplies. The rations allowed the four categories in October, 1918, are shown by the Bolshevist paperVooruzheny Narod(The Armed People):
“The Commissary of Food of the Petrograd Labor Commune states that on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, for four days, the following products will be given on the presentation of the bread cards, according to category:1st category—1 lb. (Russian) of bread and 3 lb. of potatoes2nd category—½ lb. of bread and 2 lb. of potatoes3rd category—¼ lb. of bread and 1 lb. of potatoes4th category—½ lb. of potatoes.”[15]
“The Commissary of Food of the Petrograd Labor Commune states that on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, for four days, the following products will be given on the presentation of the bread cards, according to category:
Many witnesses, have referred to the cruelty of this category system. Of course, these rations for the 3rd and 4th categories are quite insufficient to support life, and as the bourgeois classes were not only placed in these categories, but were also persecuted and prevented from getting employment in many cases, it is not surprising that hundreds of thousands of them were exterminated by these measures.
As to the question of how the Jewish element in the population came out on the question of food as compared with theChristian element there is little evidence at hand, but we may refer to one statement in a memorandum of a Mr. B. contained in the British White Book, “Russia No. 1 (1919),” as follows:
“At the Putilof Works anti-Semitism is growing, probably because the food supply committees are entirely in the hands of Jews—and voices can be heard sometimes calling for a ‘pogrom.’”[16]
“At the Putilof Works anti-Semitism is growing, probably because the food supply committees are entirely in the hands of Jews—and voices can be heard sometimes calling for a ‘pogrom.’”[16]
Wholesale starvation in Russian cities is one of the most striking features of Russia’s tragedy. The bourgeoisie, and especially the intellectual classes of the Russian people, are systematically underfed by the treacherous rationing system of the Jewish Soviet officials. Manual labor as well as the intellectual workers are subjected to a most villainous tyranny, namely, to the tyranny of starvation. It is proper to propound the question: Is this policy carried out in accordance with the stipulation of the Protocols which reads as follows:
“Our power lies in the chronic malnutrition and in the weakness of the worker, because through this he falls under our power and is unable to find either strength or energy to counteract it.” (Protocol No. III.)
“Our power lies in the chronic malnutrition and in the weakness of the worker, because through this he falls under our power and is unable to find either strength or energy to counteract it.” (Protocol No. III.)
As already seen, the Protocols call for a program of hypocrisy as well as terror. The nature of the Bolshevist régime viewed from this angle is graphically described by Mr. Roger E. Simmons in his testimony before the Overman Committee. On pages 298 and 299 of the Senate Report he states:
“Along the trans-Siberian line, proceeding slowly, I had a chance of reading the literature that the Bolsheviki were distributing in connection with their active propaganda; also the decrees, proclamations, and the public formal announcements of all kinds of the local and national authorities. Many of these sounded plausible, aimed to be constructive, ostensibly, and in their idealism and promises were golden. I could see how people would be attracted, and for the first 8 to 10 weeks understood their sanguine hopes. But after this time disintegration was rapid and I saw the awful results. Themodus operandiwas not in line with theories. They talked ideals but did not act ideals. Practices showed there was decided immorality; decidedly, the game was not being played squarely,the people being deceived by the leaders. I suspected it from the very beginning from what I saw in Siberia. If you will let me, I will read to you a significant admission in that connection.“This statement was written to me, at my request, by an American that it could be given to the American Consul General. It reads as follows:“‘Bonch Bruevitch, the executor of the acts of all the People’s Commissars, not a strong man, but a close friend of Lenine’s, who, working in the same office, is able to influence Lenine strongly. A power in the government as long as Lenine lives. He states that the Bolsheviki have not worked out a code of morals yet, and until they do, the end justifies the means. Any lies or dictatorial methods are worth using as long as they are in the interests of the working classes. A close friend of his says he has no compunctions, lying whenever there is an advantage to be gained from it for the Soviets.’“The movement is immoral, absolutely.”
“Along the trans-Siberian line, proceeding slowly, I had a chance of reading the literature that the Bolsheviki were distributing in connection with their active propaganda; also the decrees, proclamations, and the public formal announcements of all kinds of the local and national authorities. Many of these sounded plausible, aimed to be constructive, ostensibly, and in their idealism and promises were golden. I could see how people would be attracted, and for the first 8 to 10 weeks understood their sanguine hopes. But after this time disintegration was rapid and I saw the awful results. Themodus operandiwas not in line with theories. They talked ideals but did not act ideals. Practices showed there was decided immorality; decidedly, the game was not being played squarely,the people being deceived by the leaders. I suspected it from the very beginning from what I saw in Siberia. If you will let me, I will read to you a significant admission in that connection.
“This statement was written to me, at my request, by an American that it could be given to the American Consul General. It reads as follows:
“‘Bonch Bruevitch, the executor of the acts of all the People’s Commissars, not a strong man, but a close friend of Lenine’s, who, working in the same office, is able to influence Lenine strongly. A power in the government as long as Lenine lives. He states that the Bolsheviki have not worked out a code of morals yet, and until they do, the end justifies the means. Any lies or dictatorial methods are worth using as long as they are in the interests of the working classes. A close friend of his says he has no compunctions, lying whenever there is an advantage to be gained from it for the Soviets.’
“The movement is immoral, absolutely.”
In this connection it is of the utmost importance to call the attention of the reader to the statement of one of the best known Jewish Soviet officials, Zinovieff—Apfelbaum, President of the Petrograd Soviet, regarding the means of spreading world-wide propaganda. The passage as quoted before proves how closely the policies advocated in the Protocols resemble the Jewish policies as carried out by the Soviet officials in Russia. This is what Zinovieff stated on February 2, 1919:
“We are willing to sign an unfavorable peace with the allies.... It would only mean that we should put no trust whatever in the bit of paper we would sign. We should use the breathing space so obtained in order to gather our strength in order that the mere continued existence of our government would keep up the world-wide propaganda which Soviet Russia has been carrying on for more than a year.”[17]
“We are willing to sign an unfavorable peace with the allies.... It would only mean that we should put no trust whatever in the bit of paper we would sign. We should use the breathing space so obtained in order to gather our strength in order that the mere continued existence of our government would keep up the world-wide propaganda which Soviet Russia has been carrying on for more than a year.”[17]
Here again the actual policies of the Bolsheviki fully coincide with the Protocols.
The most important passage in the Protocols as to the policy advocated in regard to religion is the following:
“Liberty could also be harmless and remain on the state program without detriment to the well-being of the people if it were to retain the ideas of the belief in God and humanfraternity, free from the conception of equality which is in contradiction to the laws of nature which establish subordination. With such a faith the people would be governed by the guardians of the parish and would thrive quietly and obediently under the guidance of their spiritual leader, accepting God’s dispensation on earth. It is for this reason that we must undermine faith, tearing from the minds of theGoysthe very principle of God and Soul, and substituting mathematical formulas and material needs.”
“Liberty could also be harmless and remain on the state program without detriment to the well-being of the people if it were to retain the ideas of the belief in God and humanfraternity, free from the conception of equality which is in contradiction to the laws of nature which establish subordination. With such a faith the people would be governed by the guardians of the parish and would thrive quietly and obediently under the guidance of their spiritual leader, accepting God’s dispensation on earth. It is for this reason that we must undermine faith, tearing from the minds of theGoysthe very principle of God and Soul, and substituting mathematical formulas and material needs.”
It appears from the above excerpt that the Protocols advocate the destruction of religion and the religious spirit among the Gentiles on the ground that they are the political as well as the moral bulwarks of the Gentile states. In another place the Protocols state that the most formidable antagonist of the Jews in the past has been Rome,i.e., the Roman Catholic Church.
The Bolsheviki, whatever their real motives may be, have from the moment they came into power in Russia conducted a campaign of violence and persecution against the Christian religion, in the guise of a campaign against religion in general. While they have not attacked the Jewish religion or the Jewish rabbis, they have murdered and persecuted Christian priests and harassed their congregations in the churches. While professing to be merely following the Socialist teachings of Karl Marx (himself a Jew), who attacked religion in general as the creature of capitalism, the Bolshevist campaign against religion is in fact directed against Christianity.
Evidence of the above is found in the sworn testimony of several witnesses before the Overman Committee and in official reports of the British government and elsewhere.
An English clergyman, the Rev. B. S. Lombard, in a report to Earl Curzon, dated March 23, 1919, referring to the conditions in Soviet Russia, stated as follows:
“The treatment of the priests was brutal beyond everything. Eight of them were incarcerated in a cell in our corridor. Some of us saw an aged man knocked down twice one morning for apparently no reason whatever, and they were employed to perform the most degrading work and made to clean out the filthy prison hospital.”[18]
“The treatment of the priests was brutal beyond everything. Eight of them were incarcerated in a cell in our corridor. Some of us saw an aged man knocked down twice one morning for apparently no reason whatever, and they were employed to perform the most degrading work and made to clean out the filthy prison hospital.”[18]
Mr. George A. Simons testified before the Overman Committee, in answer to a question of Senator King, as follows:
Senator King.“Did you find, then, that atheism permeates the ranks of the Bolsheviki?”Mr. Simons.“Yes, sir. And the anti-Christ spirit as well.”
Senator King.“Did you find, then, that atheism permeates the ranks of the Bolsheviki?”
Mr. Simons.“Yes, sir. And the anti-Christ spirit as well.”
The testimony of Mr. Simons on this subject was as follows:
Senator King.“What I am trying to get at is, for my information, why Bolshevism is bitterly opposed to all sorts of religion or sacraments of the church—Christianity; because I suppose that they recognize that Christianity is the basis of law and order and of orderly government. I was wondering if you had discovered why they were so bitter against Christianity, and if you found that all the Bolsheviks were atheistic or rationalistic or anti-Christian?”Mr. Simons.“My experience over there under the Bolsheviki régime has led me to come to the conclusion that the Bolsheviki religion is not only absolutely anti-religious, atheistic, but has it in mind to make all real religious work impossible as soon as they can achieve that end which they are pressing. There was a meeting—I cannot give you the date offhand; it must have been in August, 1918—held in a large hall that had once been used by the Young Men’s Christian Association in Petrograd for their work among the Russian soldiers. The Bolsheviki confiscated it; put out the Y. M. C. A. In that large hall there was a meeting held which was to be a sort of religious dispute. Lunacharsky, the Commissar of the People’s Enlightenment, as he was called, and Mr. Spitzberg, who was the Commissar of Propaganda for Bolshevism, were the two main speakers. Both of those men spoke in very much the same way as Emma Goldman has been speaking. I have been getting some of her literature, and recently I have been very much amazed at the same line of argumentation with regard to the attack on religion and Christianity and so-called religious organizations.”Senator King.“She is the Bolshevik who has been in jail in this country and who will be deported as soon as her sentence is over?”Mr. Simons.“I do not know as she will be deported.”Senator King.“I think she will be.”Mr. Simons.“She ought to be put somewhere where she cannot issue any more of that literature. Lunacharsky and Spitzberg came out with pretty much the same things that she has been saying and printing. This is one of these theses: ‘All that is bad in the world, misery and suffering that we have had, is largely due to the superstition that there is a God.’”Senator King.“I noticed in yesterday’s paper that intheir schools the children are being taught, wherever they have schools at all, positive atheism. Did you verify that?”Mr. Simons.“Lunacharsky, as the official head of the department of education, Commissar of the People’s Enlightenment, said: ‘We now propose to enlighten our boys and our girls and we are using as a textbook a catechism of atheism which will be used in our public schools.’ Yet he had the audacity to say: ‘We are going to give all churches the same chance.’ And a priest replied to him, saying: ‘Then you ought not to put your catechism of atheism into the schools.’”[19]
Senator King.“What I am trying to get at is, for my information, why Bolshevism is bitterly opposed to all sorts of religion or sacraments of the church—Christianity; because I suppose that they recognize that Christianity is the basis of law and order and of orderly government. I was wondering if you had discovered why they were so bitter against Christianity, and if you found that all the Bolsheviks were atheistic or rationalistic or anti-Christian?”
Mr. Simons.“My experience over there under the Bolsheviki régime has led me to come to the conclusion that the Bolsheviki religion is not only absolutely anti-religious, atheistic, but has it in mind to make all real religious work impossible as soon as they can achieve that end which they are pressing. There was a meeting—I cannot give you the date offhand; it must have been in August, 1918—held in a large hall that had once been used by the Young Men’s Christian Association in Petrograd for their work among the Russian soldiers. The Bolsheviki confiscated it; put out the Y. M. C. A. In that large hall there was a meeting held which was to be a sort of religious dispute. Lunacharsky, the Commissar of the People’s Enlightenment, as he was called, and Mr. Spitzberg, who was the Commissar of Propaganda for Bolshevism, were the two main speakers. Both of those men spoke in very much the same way as Emma Goldman has been speaking. I have been getting some of her literature, and recently I have been very much amazed at the same line of argumentation with regard to the attack on religion and Christianity and so-called religious organizations.”
Senator King.“She is the Bolshevik who has been in jail in this country and who will be deported as soon as her sentence is over?”
Mr. Simons.“I do not know as she will be deported.”
Senator King.“I think she will be.”
Mr. Simons.“She ought to be put somewhere where she cannot issue any more of that literature. Lunacharsky and Spitzberg came out with pretty much the same things that she has been saying and printing. This is one of these theses: ‘All that is bad in the world, misery and suffering that we have had, is largely due to the superstition that there is a God.’”
Senator King.“I noticed in yesterday’s paper that intheir schools the children are being taught, wherever they have schools at all, positive atheism. Did you verify that?”
Mr. Simons.“Lunacharsky, as the official head of the department of education, Commissar of the People’s Enlightenment, said: ‘We now propose to enlighten our boys and our girls and we are using as a textbook a catechism of atheism which will be used in our public schools.’ Yet he had the audacity to say: ‘We are going to give all churches the same chance.’ And a priest replied to him, saying: ‘Then you ought not to put your catechism of atheism into the schools.’”[19]
Referring further to the meeting at the Y. M. C. A., Mr. Simons said a little later in his testimony:
“Lunacharsky and Spitzberg said in that meeting, and they sent it out in their proclamations: ‘The greatest enemy to our proletarian cause is religion. The so-called church is simply a camouflage of capitalistic control and they are hiding behind it, and in order to have success in our movement we must get rid of the church.’ Now a frank statement like that seems to me to indicate their anti-religious and anti-Christian animus.”[20]
“Lunacharsky and Spitzberg said in that meeting, and they sent it out in their proclamations: ‘The greatest enemy to our proletarian cause is religion. The so-called church is simply a camouflage of capitalistic control and they are hiding behind it, and in order to have success in our movement we must get rid of the church.’ Now a frank statement like that seems to me to indicate their anti-religious and anti-Christian animus.”[20]
Mr. Simons further testified as follows:
Senator King.“Has there been a confiscation of church property and buildings?”Mr. Simons.“Yes, sir; and in quite a number of instances monasteries, with their wealth, have been taken, and all kinds of indecent things have been done by certain Bolshevik officials.“I have some data showing that they have turned certain churches and monasteries into dancing halls, and one instance has been reported to me where a certain Bolshevik official went into a church while the people were there waiting for the sacrament, and threw the priest out, so I am told, and himself put on the clerical garb, and then went on the altar and made a comedy of the ritual, which stirred up the religious sense of the people to that extent that they threatened—of course, among themselves—that they would yet kill that man.He happened to be an apostate Jew.”
Senator King.“Has there been a confiscation of church property and buildings?”
Mr. Simons.“Yes, sir; and in quite a number of instances monasteries, with their wealth, have been taken, and all kinds of indecent things have been done by certain Bolshevik officials.
“I have some data showing that they have turned certain churches and monasteries into dancing halls, and one instance has been reported to me where a certain Bolshevik official went into a church while the people were there waiting for the sacrament, and threw the priest out, so I am told, and himself put on the clerical garb, and then went on the altar and made a comedy of the ritual, which stirred up the religious sense of the people to that extent that they threatened—of course, among themselves—that they would yet kill that man.He happened to be an apostate Jew.”
Mr. Roger E. Simmons testified as follows in regard to the Russian priest who was put in the same prison with him by the Bolsheviki:
“A high priest of the church was there. He had been preaching sermons publicly denouncing the immorality of the Bolsheviki. They imprisoned him and shot him. This priest told me that he was a great admirer of Dr. Mott of America.”Senator Nelson.“Do you not think that the church in the end will prove the rallying center for the anti-Bolshevik forces?”Mr. Simmons.“I think it certainly will be one of the principal factors; no doubt of it. That priest took the occasion, knowing that I was an official of the American Government, thinking that it was the last duty he could perhaps perform for Russia, to beg me to go back andtell the American people, ‘For God’s sake, send us help.’ He was speaking, gentlemen, not for himself, but for the large class of people that he represented.”[21]
“A high priest of the church was there. He had been preaching sermons publicly denouncing the immorality of the Bolsheviki. They imprisoned him and shot him. This priest told me that he was a great admirer of Dr. Mott of America.”
Senator Nelson.“Do you not think that the church in the end will prove the rallying center for the anti-Bolshevik forces?”
Mr. Simmons.“I think it certainly will be one of the principal factors; no doubt of it. That priest took the occasion, knowing that I was an official of the American Government, thinking that it was the last duty he could perhaps perform for Russia, to beg me to go back andtell the American people, ‘For God’s sake, send us help.’ He was speaking, gentlemen, not for himself, but for the large class of people that he represented.”[21]
“As you know, gentlemen, the Russians are a very religious people. Like here in the United States, there are very many denominations there, but most of the people belong to the Greek Church. Of course, the priests and religious people are not very pleasant to the Bolsheviki, because the Bolsheviki deny any religion or any religious sentiment. They oppose the Russian clergy and the Russian clergy oppose the Bolsheviki, and the Russian priests are treated very badly. For instance, they are set to do streetwork, cleaning the streets, paving streets, digging ditches, and so on. The workmen told me several times, ‘The Bolsheviki are sending out priests to work in the streets. Why do they not send their rabbis?’ And that is true.The Jewish Rabbis are not sent to work on the streets.The Bolsheviki are opposing religion to such an extent that lately when I was going to Petrograd they raised a question of teaching atheism in the schools. They boast that they have opened so many schools, but they do not say that they closed as many schools as they opened. We had schools in connection with the churches, in connection with every church there was a school, and all these schools are closed now.”[22]
“As you know, gentlemen, the Russians are a very religious people. Like here in the United States, there are very many denominations there, but most of the people belong to the Greek Church. Of course, the priests and religious people are not very pleasant to the Bolsheviki, because the Bolsheviki deny any religion or any religious sentiment. They oppose the Russian clergy and the Russian clergy oppose the Bolsheviki, and the Russian priests are treated very badly. For instance, they are set to do streetwork, cleaning the streets, paving streets, digging ditches, and so on. The workmen told me several times, ‘The Bolsheviki are sending out priests to work in the streets. Why do they not send their rabbis?’ And that is true.The Jewish Rabbis are not sent to work on the streets.The Bolsheviki are opposing religion to such an extent that lately when I was going to Petrograd they raised a question of teaching atheism in the schools. They boast that they have opened so many schools, but they do not say that they closed as many schools as they opened. We had schools in connection with the churches, in connection with every church there was a school, and all these schools are closed now.”[22]
Further evidence that the Bolsheviki, although attacking Christianity, protect the Jewish religion, is found in the following article, which appeared on the 5th of July, 1919, in the weekly publicationSoviet Russia, page 15. The article is entitled “Soviet Tolerance.” It reads as follows:
“The New York Jewish Daily, ‘The Day,’ in its issue of June 24th has the following cablegram from its European correspondent, N. Shiffrin: ‘Glad Tidings from Russia.’ ‘The Zionists have organized throughout Russia Food Co-operative Societies which are united in every city into Central Co-operativeAssociations united in the All-Russian Federation of Jewish Food Co-operative Associations. The Federation is in part subsidized by the Moscow Soviet Government. All schools of the Zionists in which the language of instruction is ancient Hebrew, as well as the Hebrew High School in Minsk, have been taken over by the government. They have been incorporated in the Public School System which is maintained by the Commissariat of Public Education.’”
“The New York Jewish Daily, ‘The Day,’ in its issue of June 24th has the following cablegram from its European correspondent, N. Shiffrin: ‘Glad Tidings from Russia.’ ‘The Zionists have organized throughout Russia Food Co-operative Societies which are united in every city into Central Co-operativeAssociations united in the All-Russian Federation of Jewish Food Co-operative Associations. The Federation is in part subsidized by the Moscow Soviet Government. All schools of the Zionists in which the language of instruction is ancient Hebrew, as well as the Hebrew High School in Minsk, have been taken over by the government. They have been incorporated in the Public School System which is maintained by the Commissariat of Public Education.’”
The significant part of this article consists in the fact that the old Hebrew is a religious language in which the Talmud is written. The old Hebrew can serve only for the study of the Talmud as well as of other Jewish religious writings. Thus, while combating the Christian religion, the Bolsheviki are extending protection to the Jewish religion and to the synagogues.
In a pamphlet entitled “The Russian Church under the Bolsheviks,” recently published in England, is printed the appeal of Father Serge Orlov, “who played an important part in the Reform movement in the Russian church,” and who is now in Switzerland, where the National Consistory has expressed its sympathy for the Russian people by composing a special prayer for the liberation of Russia from the Bolsheviks. We quote the following passages from this appeal of Father Orlov:
“Owing to Bolshevism the Orthodox Russian Church is passing through so acute a crisis that there is serious danger to the fundamental idea of the whole of Christianity.“Bolshevism is essentially hostile to Christ, and manifests even greater hatred towards Christianity than did the pagan power of the first centuries....“Bolshevism and the Christian Church cannot exist side by side.“The persecution of the Church began in January, 1918, and has been increasing since then. The Bolsheviks issued a decree on the disestablishment of the Church, although never had the Russian Church been so firmly in the grip of the secular authorities as in Soviet Russia. The Church has not only been robbed but treated with contumely. Every commissary has the right of prohibiting a service if he suspects the priest or his congregation of counter-revolutionary tendencies. Practically whenever he chooses he can close a church, turn it into a cinema, mock at the ancient sacred relics, and in general insult people’s religious feelings.“But it is strange that the greater the persecution of the Russian Church the nearer and dearer does it become to the tortured Russian people. Indeed, the priests of the Russian Church boldly denounce the Bolsheviks.Not one of the secular rulers has accused them so openly as Tikhon, the All-Russian Patriarch, over whom the Damocles sword of the Bolsheviks is always hanging. But the sword can only kill the body, and not the spirit.“As early as last February, Patriarch Tikhon excommunicated the Bolsheviks, the excommunication being read in the churches. At that time the persecution of the clergy had already commenced, but the Patriarch had not been arrested. It was only later, in the autumn of 1918, during the universal Terror, that he was placed under domiciliary arrest in his apartments in the Kremlin, with a guard of Chinese, Letts and Red Army men, and deprived of his rations. But even as a prisoner the Patriarch issued declarations against the Bolsheviks, in which he severely denounced them.“It is not enough,” writes the Patriarch, “that you have stained the hands of the Russian people with the blood of their brethren. You have instigated the people to open, shameless robbery. You have befogged their consciences and stifled their conviction of sin, but under whatever name you disguise an evil deed, murder, violence and robbery will always remain crimes and deeds of evil that clamor to Heaven for vengeance. Yes, we are going through a dreadful time under your dominion, and it will be long before it fades from the hearts of the nation, where it has dimmed the image of God and impressed that of the beast.“But as yet the Bolsheviks have not dared to raise their hand against the aged Patriarch. Apparently he is alive.”
“Owing to Bolshevism the Orthodox Russian Church is passing through so acute a crisis that there is serious danger to the fundamental idea of the whole of Christianity.
“Bolshevism is essentially hostile to Christ, and manifests even greater hatred towards Christianity than did the pagan power of the first centuries....
“Bolshevism and the Christian Church cannot exist side by side.
“The persecution of the Church began in January, 1918, and has been increasing since then. The Bolsheviks issued a decree on the disestablishment of the Church, although never had the Russian Church been so firmly in the grip of the secular authorities as in Soviet Russia. The Church has not only been robbed but treated with contumely. Every commissary has the right of prohibiting a service if he suspects the priest or his congregation of counter-revolutionary tendencies. Practically whenever he chooses he can close a church, turn it into a cinema, mock at the ancient sacred relics, and in general insult people’s religious feelings.
“But it is strange that the greater the persecution of the Russian Church the nearer and dearer does it become to the tortured Russian people. Indeed, the priests of the Russian Church boldly denounce the Bolsheviks.Not one of the secular rulers has accused them so openly as Tikhon, the All-Russian Patriarch, over whom the Damocles sword of the Bolsheviks is always hanging. But the sword can only kill the body, and not the spirit.
“As early as last February, Patriarch Tikhon excommunicated the Bolsheviks, the excommunication being read in the churches. At that time the persecution of the clergy had already commenced, but the Patriarch had not been arrested. It was only later, in the autumn of 1918, during the universal Terror, that he was placed under domiciliary arrest in his apartments in the Kremlin, with a guard of Chinese, Letts and Red Army men, and deprived of his rations. But even as a prisoner the Patriarch issued declarations against the Bolsheviks, in which he severely denounced them.
“It is not enough,” writes the Patriarch, “that you have stained the hands of the Russian people with the blood of their brethren. You have instigated the people to open, shameless robbery. You have befogged their consciences and stifled their conviction of sin, but under whatever name you disguise an evil deed, murder, violence and robbery will always remain crimes and deeds of evil that clamor to Heaven for vengeance. Yes, we are going through a dreadful time under your dominion, and it will be long before it fades from the hearts of the nation, where it has dimmed the image of God and impressed that of the beast.
“But as yet the Bolsheviks have not dared to raise their hand against the aged Patriarch. Apparently he is alive.”
A faint idea of what the Bolsheviks are doing to the Russian Church may be gathered from the following:
“According to information received from A. Kartashov, former Minister of Cults, by December, 1918, the Bolsheviks had killed ten archbishops and bishops; it is difficult to ascertain the number of priests killed. It reaches several hundreds. The Patriarch is a prisoner in his own house. According to the (later) message from the Archbishop of Omsk, President of the Supreme Administration of the Orthodox Church, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Metropolitan of Kiev, twenty bishops and hundreds of priests have been assassinated. Some were buried alive. ‘Wherever the Bolsheviks are in power,’ says the Archbishop of Omsk, ‘the Christian Church is persecuted with even greater ferocity than in the first three centuries of the Christian era.’“When, in January, 1919, the town of Yuriev (Dorpat)was taken by the Bolsheviks, Bishop Platon was arrested. The Reval papers thus describe the Bishop’s last moments. The Bolsheviks burst into his house at night, dragged him from his bed. Barefoot and clad only in his under-linen, the Bishop, with 17 other persons, was dragged down to the cellars of the house they had been arrested in. Here the Red executioners rushed at them with their axes and killed them.“Near Kotlas, all the ten monks of the monastery, with the prior at their head, were shot for agitation against the Soviet authorities.”
“According to information received from A. Kartashov, former Minister of Cults, by December, 1918, the Bolsheviks had killed ten archbishops and bishops; it is difficult to ascertain the number of priests killed. It reaches several hundreds. The Patriarch is a prisoner in his own house. According to the (later) message from the Archbishop of Omsk, President of the Supreme Administration of the Orthodox Church, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Metropolitan of Kiev, twenty bishops and hundreds of priests have been assassinated. Some were buried alive. ‘Wherever the Bolsheviks are in power,’ says the Archbishop of Omsk, ‘the Christian Church is persecuted with even greater ferocity than in the first three centuries of the Christian era.’
“When, in January, 1919, the town of Yuriev (Dorpat)was taken by the Bolsheviks, Bishop Platon was arrested. The Reval papers thus describe the Bishop’s last moments. The Bolsheviks burst into his house at night, dragged him from his bed. Barefoot and clad only in his under-linen, the Bishop, with 17 other persons, was dragged down to the cellars of the house they had been arrested in. Here the Red executioners rushed at them with their axes and killed them.
“Near Kotlas, all the ten monks of the monastery, with the prior at their head, were shot for agitation against the Soviet authorities.”
Information has come from Omsk that as a result of a judicial investigation of the Bolshevik terror in Perm, the following has been discovered:—
“Archbishop Andronik was buried alive; Vassili, Archbishop of Chernigov, who had come to Moscow to inquire about the fate of Archbishop Andronik, was cut down and killed with his two companions. Bishop Feofan was first tortured, then dipped several times into the river through a hole in the ice, and finally drowned in the River Kama. Besides this, it was discovered that 50 priests had been executed. Before being killed they were horribly tortured.“At the evacuation of Cherdyn the Bolsheviks took with them among other hostages a highly respected priest, Nicolas Koniurov, whom they subjected to atrocious torments.“During a severe frost they stripped the old man naked and poured water over him until he was transformed into a statue of ice.”(“The Russian Church under the Bolsheviks,” pages 1, 2, 3.)
“Archbishop Andronik was buried alive; Vassili, Archbishop of Chernigov, who had come to Moscow to inquire about the fate of Archbishop Andronik, was cut down and killed with his two companions. Bishop Feofan was first tortured, then dipped several times into the river through a hole in the ice, and finally drowned in the River Kama. Besides this, it was discovered that 50 priests had been executed. Before being killed they were horribly tortured.
“At the evacuation of Cherdyn the Bolsheviks took with them among other hostages a highly respected priest, Nicolas Koniurov, whom they subjected to atrocious torments.
“During a severe frost they stripped the old man naked and poured water over him until he was transformed into a statue of ice.”
(“The Russian Church under the Bolsheviks,” pages 1, 2, 3.)
The statement of the Rev. R. Courtier-Forster, British Chaplain at Odessa, already cited under the head of “Terror,” contains the following passage as to the martyrdom of Christians under the Bolsheviki:
“It was the martyrdom of the two Metropolitans and the assassination of so many Bishops and the killing of hundreds of various Christian ministers of religion, regardless of denomination or school of thought, that proved the undoing of theScourge. Russian Orthodox clergy, Protestant Lutheran pastors, Roman Catholic priests, were tortured and done to death with the same light-hearted indiscrimination in the name of Toleration and Freedom. Then it was that theScourge, seeing the last remnants of Liberty ground under the heel of a tyranny more brutal in its methods than a mediaeval torture chamber, published another full-page cartoon representing Moses descending from the Burning Mount, bringing in hisarms the Tables of Ten Commandments to Humanity, and being stoned to death by a mob of workmen’s and soldiers’ delegates.“The following Sunday afternoon I was passing through the Town Gardens, when I saw a group of Bolshevist soldiers insulting an Ikon of the Thorn-crowned Face of Christ. The owner of the Ikon was spitting in the pictured Face, while the others were standing around watching with loud guffaws of laughter. Presently they tore the sacred picture into fragments, danced on it, and trampled and stamped the pieces into the mud.”(“Bolshevism, Reign of Torture at Odessa,” by Rev. R. Courtier-Forster, reprinted from The Times, Dec. 3, 1919, page 4.)
“It was the martyrdom of the two Metropolitans and the assassination of so many Bishops and the killing of hundreds of various Christian ministers of religion, regardless of denomination or school of thought, that proved the undoing of theScourge. Russian Orthodox clergy, Protestant Lutheran pastors, Roman Catholic priests, were tortured and done to death with the same light-hearted indiscrimination in the name of Toleration and Freedom. Then it was that theScourge, seeing the last remnants of Liberty ground under the heel of a tyranny more brutal in its methods than a mediaeval torture chamber, published another full-page cartoon representing Moses descending from the Burning Mount, bringing in hisarms the Tables of Ten Commandments to Humanity, and being stoned to death by a mob of workmen’s and soldiers’ delegates.
“The following Sunday afternoon I was passing through the Town Gardens, when I saw a group of Bolshevist soldiers insulting an Ikon of the Thorn-crowned Face of Christ. The owner of the Ikon was spitting in the pictured Face, while the others were standing around watching with loud guffaws of laughter. Presently they tore the sacred picture into fragments, danced on it, and trampled and stamped the pieces into the mud.”
(“Bolshevism, Reign of Torture at Odessa,” by Rev. R. Courtier-Forster, reprinted from The Times, Dec. 3, 1919, page 4.)
It will be recalled that the Protocols specifically refer to the incitement of class hatred as one of the most effective means of bringing about the destruction of Christian, that is, “Goy” states. The concluding sentence of Protocol No. IV reads as follows:
“It will be at that stage that the lower classes of theGoys, not for the sake of doing good, nor even for the sake of wealth, but solely because of their hatred towards the privileged, will follow us against the intelligentGoys, our competitors for power.”
“It will be at that stage that the lower classes of theGoys, not for the sake of doing good, nor even for the sake of wealth, but solely because of their hatred towards the privileged, will follow us against the intelligentGoys, our competitors for power.”
This remarkable stipulation of the Protocols is literally followed by the Jewish Soviet officials in Russia. This is how Mr. Roger E. Simmons, in his testimony before the Overman Committee, describes the policy of inciting class hatred by the Bolsheviki in Russia:
Mr. Simmons.“Being a social revolution, of course the worst parts about it are the results of the awful class hatred the Bolsheviki leaders are inciting. They are inciting it in every part of the country by their publications and in all their efficient propaganda. It has not been any more disastrous in any parts of Russia, I believe, than it has been in many villages among the peasantry.“Their policy has as an underlying motive the arousing of class antagonism, the proletariat hating the bourgeoisie. In practice it means that the less fortunate in every industry and institution bear animus against those qualified to hold better positions. This has been indirectly the cause of most of the incidents of terrorism witnesses have spoken of, more of which I will tell you about later.“When it was seen that the peasantry did not rally to thesupport of the Bolshevik cause and that they refused to sell grain for rubles without value, the Bolsheviki took the class issue to the villages. Lenine calls this movement awakening class consciousness of the peasantry. He organized for this work ‘poor committees,’ as they are called in translation. These committees of soldiers go out to the villages to inflame the dissatisfied elements and to extract by force food from the peasants.... But Lenine sends the poor committees, agitators, to incite peasants who have no land to conspire against those who have, and to take the guns he gives them for fighting, robbing, and plundering neighbors in their own and neighboring villages who have land. When you come later to read, gentlemen, the history of the Russian revolution, some of the bloodiest fights, you will find, and worst horrors, have occurred in villages. Those simple, peace-loving people have been living among themselves for centuries in more or less harmony under their communistic system. But all of a sudden Lenine, by his nefarious policies, sets the passions of the demoralized class aflame and turns them against the other two classes. Instead of promoting brotherly love and helping to make the sentiment of the nation one for the good of all, as we are striving to do in America, the Bolsheviki are trying byjealousy and animosity to disintegrate the population of various localitiesinto classes with a view of the honest toiler being overcome and subjected. Now this is a serious matter. The peasantry represent 85 per cent of the 160,000,000 Russians.“In Russia class hatred is seen manifested everywhere. I will mention one illustration which I saw in Petrograd—the undressing of a woman. I had heard about it before. It was about 6:30, growing dark, as I was walking down the Nevsky Prospect on my way home. I heard a yell of distress from a woman up a street running perpendicularly to the Nevsky. There two soldiers were removing the cloak—a very good substantial cloth coat—from a woman. And when protests were made by the standers-by, the answer was, ‘We have blacked your boots and washed your clothes for many years. Now you bourgeoisie have got to bow to us and wash our clothes and black our boots.’ Undressing to steal clothes went on to a considerable extent in Moscow, Petrograd and Kiev, according to reports. It went as far as taking off besides cloaks the very dresses of women, and where they could handle it, taking also the clothes and overcoats off men....“Now, you can see that all their practices aimed to invite people to do acts of that kind showing intense hatred—I wish I could think of another word, it is more than hatred—detestation—against people that they thought were a little higher up. Now, remember, as I pointed out in the first place this hatred is against a good many of these people in the cities,and people like the peasants who had land, who belonged to the proletariat. But because they did not agree, they call them bourgeoisie. You can see that they are fighting parts of the very class for whom they say they are trying to establish a dictatorship. They are not trying to put the proletariat in power, but the most demoralized elements of that class, which represents, gentlemen, a very small per cent.“Now, this class hatred is a matter we have got to consider, I think, with a great deal of interest and a great deal of seriousness, because it is the basis of their international movement.”[23]
Mr. Simmons.“Being a social revolution, of course the worst parts about it are the results of the awful class hatred the Bolsheviki leaders are inciting. They are inciting it in every part of the country by their publications and in all their efficient propaganda. It has not been any more disastrous in any parts of Russia, I believe, than it has been in many villages among the peasantry.
“Their policy has as an underlying motive the arousing of class antagonism, the proletariat hating the bourgeoisie. In practice it means that the less fortunate in every industry and institution bear animus against those qualified to hold better positions. This has been indirectly the cause of most of the incidents of terrorism witnesses have spoken of, more of which I will tell you about later.
“When it was seen that the peasantry did not rally to thesupport of the Bolshevik cause and that they refused to sell grain for rubles without value, the Bolsheviki took the class issue to the villages. Lenine calls this movement awakening class consciousness of the peasantry. He organized for this work ‘poor committees,’ as they are called in translation. These committees of soldiers go out to the villages to inflame the dissatisfied elements and to extract by force food from the peasants.... But Lenine sends the poor committees, agitators, to incite peasants who have no land to conspire against those who have, and to take the guns he gives them for fighting, robbing, and plundering neighbors in their own and neighboring villages who have land. When you come later to read, gentlemen, the history of the Russian revolution, some of the bloodiest fights, you will find, and worst horrors, have occurred in villages. Those simple, peace-loving people have been living among themselves for centuries in more or less harmony under their communistic system. But all of a sudden Lenine, by his nefarious policies, sets the passions of the demoralized class aflame and turns them against the other two classes. Instead of promoting brotherly love and helping to make the sentiment of the nation one for the good of all, as we are striving to do in America, the Bolsheviki are trying byjealousy and animosity to disintegrate the population of various localitiesinto classes with a view of the honest toiler being overcome and subjected. Now this is a serious matter. The peasantry represent 85 per cent of the 160,000,000 Russians.
“In Russia class hatred is seen manifested everywhere. I will mention one illustration which I saw in Petrograd—the undressing of a woman. I had heard about it before. It was about 6:30, growing dark, as I was walking down the Nevsky Prospect on my way home. I heard a yell of distress from a woman up a street running perpendicularly to the Nevsky. There two soldiers were removing the cloak—a very good substantial cloth coat—from a woman. And when protests were made by the standers-by, the answer was, ‘We have blacked your boots and washed your clothes for many years. Now you bourgeoisie have got to bow to us and wash our clothes and black our boots.’ Undressing to steal clothes went on to a considerable extent in Moscow, Petrograd and Kiev, according to reports. It went as far as taking off besides cloaks the very dresses of women, and where they could handle it, taking also the clothes and overcoats off men....
“Now, you can see that all their practices aimed to invite people to do acts of that kind showing intense hatred—I wish I could think of another word, it is more than hatred—detestation—against people that they thought were a little higher up. Now, remember, as I pointed out in the first place this hatred is against a good many of these people in the cities,and people like the peasants who had land, who belonged to the proletariat. But because they did not agree, they call them bourgeoisie. You can see that they are fighting parts of the very class for whom they say they are trying to establish a dictatorship. They are not trying to put the proletariat in power, but the most demoralized elements of that class, which represents, gentlemen, a very small per cent.
“Now, this class hatred is a matter we have got to consider, I think, with a great deal of interest and a great deal of seriousness, because it is the basis of their international movement.”[23]
The Protocols call for a world autocracy and state that liberalism in government is a source of weakness which should be encouraged by the Jews only for the temporary object of destroying Christian states with the ultimate purpose of establishing a Jewish despotism over the whole world.
“Only an autocrat can outline great and clear plans which allocate in an orderly manner all the parts of the mechanism of the government machinery.”
“Only an autocrat can outline great and clear plans which allocate in an orderly manner all the parts of the mechanism of the government machinery.”
On the other hand, the Protocols state as follows:
“In all parts of the world the words ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’ have brought whole legions into our ranks through our blind agents, carrying our banners with delight. Meanwhile these words were worms which ruined the prosperity of theGoys, everywhere destroying peace, quiet, and solidarity, undermining all the foundations of their states.”
“In all parts of the world the words ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’ have brought whole legions into our ranks through our blind agents, carrying our banners with delight. Meanwhile these words were worms which ruined the prosperity of theGoys, everywhere destroying peace, quiet, and solidarity, undermining all the foundations of their states.”
Ambassador Francis, when asked by Senator King whether Lenin and Trotzky and those who are in control of the Bolshevik government were there as the result of a general election, testified:[24]
Mr. Francis.“No, no. They are there as usurpers.”Senator King.“By force and terror?”Mr. Francis.“I do not think they represent more than ten per cent of the Russians.”Senator Overman.“Of the whole 180,000,000?”Mr. Francis.“Of the whole 180,000,000.”
Mr. Francis.“No, no. They are there as usurpers.”
Senator King.“By force and terror?”
Mr. Francis.“I do not think they represent more than ten per cent of the Russians.”
Senator Overman.“Of the whole 180,000,000?”
Mr. Francis.“Of the whole 180,000,000.”
Mr. Roger E. Simmons also describes the Bolshevik government as it existed when he left Russia in November, 1918, as follows:
“The Soviet government, composed solely of Bolsheviks, of a portion only of the ‘manual proletariat’ is a government in name only. Rightly stated, it is a well-organized institution functioning to further the social revolution, the overthrow of all recognized standards of morality and civilization.”[25]
“The Soviet government, composed solely of Bolsheviks, of a portion only of the ‘manual proletariat’ is a government in name only. Rightly stated, it is a well-organized institution functioning to further the social revolution, the overthrow of all recognized standards of morality and civilization.”[25]
That gradual despotism shown by the testimony of these witnesses to exist in 1918 has tended to become more and more complete is shown by evidence of a recent date. The British White Book, “Russia No. 1 (1919), Collection of Reports on Bolshevism in Russia,” contains a report of a Mr. C. who was formerly connected with a commercial company which had a branch in Moscow. This document bears the date of January 21, 1919. Among other information therein contained is the following:
“All factories nationalized; only about half of them working. Men all anti-Bolshevik. Very discontented with conditions of life, and with the working of the factories. Conditions getting worse and worse every day. A great many of the men have gone to the country, as it is practically impossible to live in the towns.... In Petrograd more attempts to strike than in Moscow; this is because in Moscow the workmen are more under the power of the government, andthey do not dare to strike. Even if they did there is nothing to gain by it, for the government would simply stop their wages, discharge a good many, and probably cancel their bread cards.”
“All factories nationalized; only about half of them working. Men all anti-Bolshevik. Very discontented with conditions of life, and with the working of the factories. Conditions getting worse and worse every day. A great many of the men have gone to the country, as it is practically impossible to live in the towns.... In Petrograd more attempts to strike than in Moscow; this is because in Moscow the workmen are more under the power of the government, andthey do not dare to strike. Even if they did there is nothing to gain by it, for the government would simply stop their wages, discharge a good many, and probably cancel their bread cards.”
As recently as in the fall of 1919 conditions in the factories were reported to be intolerable. The Soviet officials have gone far beyond that part of the program of Karl Marx in his “Communist Manifesto,” which prescribes “Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.” The Soviet government’s Code of Labor Laws, translated into English and published in New York inSoviet Russia, the organ of the Russian Soviet Bureau, in its issue of February 21, 1920, imposes compulsory labor upon every one, male or female, between the ages of sixteen and sixty, unless physically disqualified, and enforces iron discipline of the most tyrannical nature.
Moreover, the New YorkWorldof Friday, April 9, 1920, published an article entitled “Mobilize Russian Labor,” in which it was stated that Trotzky, addressing the ninth convention of the Communist Party at Moscow on March 27, 1920,directed his address chiefly to defining the relation between the mobilization of industry to the industrial rehabilitation of Russia, and stated:
“Mobilization is more necessary now than it was formerly, because we have to deal with the peasant population and masses of unskilled labor which cannot be utilized to the fullest extent by any other means than military discipline. Trades unions are capable of organizing great masses of qualified workers, but 30 per cent of the people cannot be reached by this means.”An elaborate system among the workmen had been gradually established and at present the communist spy reporting directly to the Soviets has almost mediaeval powers of executing a man merely for the reason that he is opposed to the tyranny of the Soviets. Moreover, by the weapon of starvation, the workman is compelled to work more hours than under any preceding form of government. The very right to strike is entirely denied the workmen. Every strike is called sabotage against the Soviets and every act of sabotage is forbidden under pain of capital punishment. Supplementary Decree No. 27 deals specifically with incitements to strike. Persons violating such decree are brought before the Extraordinary Committees to Combat Counter-revolution.
“Mobilization is more necessary now than it was formerly, because we have to deal with the peasant population and masses of unskilled labor which cannot be utilized to the fullest extent by any other means than military discipline. Trades unions are capable of organizing great masses of qualified workers, but 30 per cent of the people cannot be reached by this means.”
An elaborate system among the workmen had been gradually established and at present the communist spy reporting directly to the Soviets has almost mediaeval powers of executing a man merely for the reason that he is opposed to the tyranny of the Soviets. Moreover, by the weapon of starvation, the workman is compelled to work more hours than under any preceding form of government. The very right to strike is entirely denied the workmen. Every strike is called sabotage against the Soviets and every act of sabotage is forbidden under pain of capital punishment. Supplementary Decree No. 27 deals specifically with incitements to strike. Persons violating such decree are brought before the Extraordinary Committees to Combat Counter-revolution.
This situation strikingly recalls a passage in the Protocols where it is stated:
“Civilization cannot exist withoutabsolute despotism, for government is carried on not by the masses, but by their leader whoever he may be.”
“Civilization cannot exist withoutabsolute despotism, for government is carried on not by the masses, but by their leader whoever he may be.”
Is Trotzky this leader?
Immediately before his departure from the United States for Russia in order to join his brethren who were engaged in the destruction of the Russian state, Trotzky made the following boast:
“I stand forth the world’s greatest internationalist. I shall rule Russia.”
“I stand forth the world’s greatest internationalist. I shall rule Russia.”
Then he made this appeal to the audience:
“On with our world civil war! On with the world revolution! Down with the governments!”
“On with our world civil war! On with the world revolution! Down with the governments!”
Unfortunately, the wise step taken by the British Government in arresting Trotzky at Halifax while on his way to Russia was countermanded, and Lieut.-Colonel J. B. Maclean, proprietor ofMaclean’s Magazine, published at Toronto, inan article entitled “Why Did We Let Trotzky Go?”, printed in the issue of June, 1919 (Vol. XXXII, No. 6), referring to various explanations for his release, says, “Finally it is said it was done at the request of the British Embassy at Washington over the head of the British and American Intelligence Department; and that the Embassy acted on the request of the U. S. State Department, who were acting for some one else.”