VIITHE RED TERROR

10TheBulletinof the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets (No. 25), February 24, 1919, reports such a case. Many other similar references might be quoted.Pravda, July 4, 1919, said that many of those sent to requisition grain from the peasants were themselves “gross speculators.”

How utterly the attempt to wrest the food from the peasants by armed force failed is evidenced by figures published in the Soviet journal,Finances and National Economy(No. 310). The figures show the amounts of food-supplies received in Petrograd in the first nine months of 1918 as compared with the corresponding period of the previous year.The totals include flour, rye, wheat, barley, oats, and peas:

If we take barley and oats, which were drawn mainly from the northern and central provinces and from the middle Volga—territories occupied by the Bolsheviki and free from “enemy forces”—we find that the same story is told: in the three months July-September, 1918, 105 tons of barley were received, as against 1,245 tons in the corresponding period of the previous year. Of oats the amount received in the three months of July-September, 1918, was 175 tons as against 3,105 tons in the corresponding period of 1917.

Armed force failed as completely as Gorky had predicted it would. References to the French Revolution are often upon the lips of the leaders of Bolshevism, and they have slavishly copied its form and even its terminology. It might have been expected, therefore, that they would have remembered the French experience with the Law of Maximum and its utter and tragic failure, and that they would have learned something therefrom, at least enough to avoid a repetition of the same mistakes as were made in 1793. There is no evidence of such learning, however. For that matter, is there any evidence that they have learned anything from history?

Not only was armed force used in a vain attempt to wrest the grain from the peasants, but similar methods were relied upon to force the peasants into the Red Army. On May 1, 1919,Pravda, official organ of the Communist Party, published the following announcement:

From the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party announces the following—To all provincial committees of the Communist Party, to Provincial Military Commissaries.The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, at the session of April 23d, unanimously adopted the decree to bring the middle and poor peasants into the struggle against the counter-revolution. According to this decree, every canton must send 10 to 20 strong, capable soldiers, who can act as nuclei for Red Army units in those places to which they will be sent.

From the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party.

The Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party announces the following—

To all provincial committees of the Communist Party, to Provincial Military Commissaries.

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, at the session of April 23d, unanimously adopted the decree to bring the middle and poor peasants into the struggle against the counter-revolution. According to this decree, every canton must send 10 to 20 strong, capable soldiers, who can act as nuclei for Red Army units in those places to which they will be sent.

Just as they had resisted all efforts to wrest away their grain and other foodstuffs by force, so the peasants resisted the attempts at forcible mobilization. Conscripted peasants who had been mobilized refused to go to the front and attempted mass desertions in many places, notably, however, in Astrakhan. These struggles went on throughout the early summer of 1919, but in the end force triumphed. On August 12, 1919, Trotsky wrote inPravda:

The mobilization of the 19-year-old and part of the 18-year-old men, the inrush of the peasants who before refusedto appear in answer to the mobilization decree, all of this is creating a powerful, almost inexhaustible, source from which to build up our army.... From now on any resistance to local authorities, any attempt to retain and protect any valuable and experienced military worker is deliberate sabotage.... No one should dare to forget that all Soviet Russia is an armed camp.... All Soviet institutions are obliged, immediately, within the next months, not only to furnish officers’ schools with the best quarters, but, in general, they must furnish these schools with such material and special aids as will make it possible for the students to work in the most intensive manner....

Bitter as the conflict was during this period and throughout 1919, it was, nevertheless, considerably less violent than during the previous year. This was due to the fact that the Bolsheviki had modified their policy in dealing with the peasants in some very important respects. Precisely as they had manifested particular hatred toward the bourgeoisie in the cities, and made their appeal to the proletariat, so they had, from the very first, manifested a special hatred toward the great body of peasants of the “middle class”—that is to say, the fairly well-to-do and successful peasant—and made their appeal to the very poorest and least successful. The peasants who owned their own farms, possessed decent stock, and perhaps employed some assistance, were regarded as the “rural bourgeoisie” whom it was necessary to expropriate. The whole appeal of the Bolsheviki, so far as the peasant was concerned, was to the element corresponding to the proletariat, owning nothing. The leaders of theBolsheviki believed that only the poorest section of the peasantry could make common cause with the proletariat; that the greater part of the peasantry belonged with the bourgeoisie. They relied upon the union of the urban proletariat and the poorest part of the peasantry, led by the former, to furnish the sinews of the Revolution. Over and over again Lenin’s speeches and writings prior to April, 1919, refer to “the proletariat and the poorest peasants”; over and over again he emphasizes this union, always with the more or less definite statement that “the proletariat” must lead and “the poorest peasants” follow.

In April, 1919, at the Congress of the Russian Communist Party, Lenin read a report on the attitude of the proletariat and the Soviet power to the peasantry which marked a complete change of attitude, despite the fact that Lenin intimated that neither he nor the party had ever believed anything else. “No sensible Socialist ever thought that we might apply violence to the middle peasantry,” he said. He even disclaimed any intention to expropriate the rich peasants, if they would refrain from counter-revolutionary tendencies! Of course, in thus affirming his orthodoxy while throwing over an important article of his creed, Lenin was simply conforming to an old and familiar practice. When we remember how he berated the Menshevist Social Democrats and declared them not to be Socialists because their party represented “fairly prosperous peasants,”11and the fact that the SovietConstitution itself sets forth that the dictatorship to be set up is “of the urban and rural proletariat and the poorest peasantry,12” Lenin’s attempt to make it appear that he had always regarded the middle and rich peasantry with such benign toleration can only move us to laughter.

11The New International, April, 1918.

12Article II, chap. v, paragraph 9.

To present Lenin’s change of front fairly it is necessary to quote at considerable length from his two speeches at the Congress as reported inPravda, April 5 and 9, 1919:

During the long period of the bourgeois rule the peasant has always supported the bourgeois authority and was on the side of the bourgeoisie. This is understandable if one takes into account the economic strength of the bourgeoisie and the political methods of its rule. We cannot expect the middle peasant to come over to our side immediately. But if we direct our policy correctly, then after a certain period hesitation will cease and the peasant may come over to our side. Engels, who, together with Marx, laid the foundations of scientific Marxism—that is, of the doctrine which our party follows constantly and particularly in time of revolution—Engels already established the fact that the peasantry is differentiated with respect to their land holdings into small, middle, and large; and this differentiation for the overwhelming majority of the European countries exists to-day. Engels said, “Perhaps it will not be necessary to suppress by force even the large peasantry in all places.” And no sensible Socialist ever thought that we might ever apply violence to the middle peasantry (the smaller peasantry is our friend). This is what Engels said in 1894, a year before his death, whenthe agrarian question was the burning question of the day. This point of view shows us that truth which is sometimes forgotten, though with which we have always theoretically been in accord. With respect to landlords and capitalists our task is complete expropriation. But we do not permit any violence with respect to the middle peasant. Even with respect to the rich peasant, we do not speak with the same determination as with regard to the bourgeoisie, “Absolute expropriation of the rich peasantry.” In our program this difference is emphasized. We say, “The suppression of the resistance of the peasantry, the suppression of its counter-revolutionary tendencies.” This is not complete expropriation.The fundamental difference in our attitude toward the bourgeoisie and toward the middle peasantry is complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie, but union with the middle peasantry that does not exploit others. This fundamental linein theoryis recognized by all.In practicethis line is not always observed strictly, andlocal workers have not learned to observe it at all. When the proletariat overthrew the bourgeois authority and established its own and set about to create a new society, the question of the middle peasantry came into the foreground. Not a single Socialist in the world has denied the fact that the establishment of communism will proceed differently in those countries where there is large land tenure. This is the most elementary of truths and from this truth it follows that as we approach the tasks of construction our main attention should be concentrated to a certain extent precisely on the middle peasantry. Much will depend on how we have defined our attitude toward the middle peasantry. Theoretically, this question has been decided, but we know from our own experience the difference between the theoretical decision of a question and the practical carrying out of the decision.... All remember with what difficulty, and after how many months, we passed from workmen’s control to workmen’s administration of industry, and that was development within our class, within the proletarian class, with which we had always had relations. But now we must define our attitude toward a new class, toward a class which the city workmen do not know. We must define our attitude toward a class which does not have a definite steadfast position. The proletariat as a mass is for Socialism; the bourgeoisie is against Socialism; it is easy to define the relations between two such classes. But when we come to such a group as the middle peasantry, then it appears that this is such a kind of class that it hesitates. The middle peasant is part property-owner and part toiler. He does not exploit other representatives of the toilers. For decades he has had to struggle hard to maintain his position and he has felt the exploitation of the landlord-capitalists. But at the same time he is a property-owner.Therefore our attitude toward this class presents enormous difficulties. On the basis of our experience of more than a year, and of proletariat work in the village for more than a year, and in view of the fact that there has already taken place a class differentiation in the village, we must be most careful not to be hasty, not to theorize without understanding, not to consider ready what has not been worked out. In the resolution which the committee proposes to you, prepared by the agrarian section, which one of the next speakers will read to you, you will find many warnings on this point. From the economic point of view it is clear that we must go to the assistance of the middle peasant. On this point theoretically there is no doubt. But with our level of culture, with our lack of cultural and technical forces which we could offer to the village, and with that helplessness with which we often go to the villages, comrades oftenapply compulsion, which spoils the whole cause. Only yesterday one comrade gave me a small pamphlet entitled,Instructions for Party Activity in the Province of Nizhninovgorod, a publication of the Nizhninovgorod Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviki), and in this pamphlet I read, for example, on page 41, “The decree on the extraordinary revolutionary tax should fall with its whole weight on the shoulders of the village rich peasant speculators, and in general on the middle elements of the peasantry.” Now here one may see that people have indeed “understood,” or is this a misprint? But it is not admissible for such misprints to appear. Or is this the result of hurried, hasty work, which shows how dangerous haste is in a matter like this? Or have we here simply a failure to understand, though this is the very worst supposition which I really do not wish to make with reference to our comrades at Nizhninovgorod? It is quite possible that this is simply an oversight. Such instances occur in practice, as one of the comrades in the commission has related. The peasants surrounded him and each peasant asked: “Please define, am I a middle peasant or not? I have two horses and one cow. I have two cows and one horse,” etc. And so this agitator who was traveling over entire districts had to use a kind of thermometer in order to take each peasant and tell him whether he was a middle peasant or not. But to do this he had to know the whole history and economic life of this particular peasant and his relations to lower and higher groups, and of course we cannot know this with exactness.Here one must have practical experience and knowledge of local conditions, and we have not these things as yet. We are not at all ashamed to admit this; we must admit this openly. We have never been Utopists and have never imagined that we could build up the communistic society with the pure hands of pure communistswho would be born and educated in a pure communistic society. Such would be children’s fables. We must build communism on the ruins of capitalism, and only that class which has been tempered in the struggle against capitalism can do this. You know very well that the proletariat is not without the faults and weaknesses of the capitalistic society. It struggles for Socialism, and at the same time against its own defects. The best and most progressive portion of the proletariat which has been carrying on a desperate struggle in the cities for decades was able to imitate in the course of this struggle all the culture of city life, and to a certain extent did acquire it. You know that the village even in the most progressive countries was condemned to ignorance. Of course, the cultural level of the village will be raised by us, but that is a matter of years and years. This is what our comrades everywhere forget, and this is what every word that comes to us from the village portrays with particular clearness, when the word comes not from local intellectuals and local officials, but from people who are watching the work in the village from a practical point of view.When we speak of the tasks in connection with work in the villages, in spite of all difficulties, in spite of the fact that our knowledge has been directed to the immediate suppression of exploiters, we must nevertheless remember and not forget that in the villages with relation to the middle peasantry the task is of a different nature. All conscious workmen, of Petrograd, Ivanovo-Vosnesensk, and Moscow, who have been in the villages, tell us of instances of many misunderstandings, of misunderstandings that could not be solved, it seemed, and of conflicts of the most serious nature, all of which were, however, solved by sensible workmen who did not speak according to the book, but in language which the peoplecould understand, and not like an officer allowing himself to issue orders though unacquainted with village life, but like a comrade explaining the situation and appealing to their feelings as toilers. And by such explanation one attained what could not be attained by thousands who conducted themselves like commanders or superiors.The resolution which we now present for your attention is drawn up in this spirit. I have tried in this report to emphasize the main principles behind this resolution, and its general political significance. I have tried to show, and I trust I have succeeded, that from the point of view of the interests of the revolution as a whole we have not made any changes. We have not altered our line of action. The White-Guardists and their assistants shout and will continue to shout that we have changed. Let them shout. That does not disturb us. We are developing our aims in an absolutely logical manner. From the task of suppressing the bourgeoisie we must now transfer our attention to the task of building up the life of the middle peasantry. We must live with the middle peasantry in peace. The middle peasantry in a communistic society will be on our side only if we lighten and improve its economic conditions. If we to-morrow could furnish a hundred thousand first-class tractors supplied with gasolene and machinists (you know, of course, that for the moment this is dreaming), then the middle peasant would say, “I am for the Commune.” But in order to do this we must first defeat the international bourgeoisie; we must force them to give us these tractors, or we must increase our own production so that we can ourselves produce them. Only thus is the question stated correctly.The peasant needs the industries of the cities and cannot live without them and the industries are in our hands. If we approach the situation correctly, then the peasantwill thank us because we will bring him the products from the cities—implements and culture. It will not be exploiters who will bring him these things, not landlords, but his own comrades, workers whom he values very deeply. The middle peasant is very practical and values only actual assistance, quite carelessly thrusting aside all commands and instructions from above.First help him and then you will secure his confidence. If this matter is handled correctly, if each step taken by our group in the village, in the canton, in the food-supply detachment, or in any organization, is carefully made, is carefully verified from this point of view, then we shall win the confidence of the peasant, and only then shall we be able to move forward. Now we must give him assistance. We must give him advice, and this must not be the order of a commanding officer, but the advice of a comrade. The peasant then will be absolutely for us.... We learned how to overthrow the bourgeoisie and suppress it and we are very proud of what we have done. We have not yet learned how to regulate our relations with the millions of middle peasants and how to win their confidence. We must say this frankly; but we have understood the task and we have undertaken it and we say to ourselves with full hope, complete knowledge, and entire decision: We shall solve this task, and then Socialism will be absolute, invincible.

The fundamental difference in our attitude toward the bourgeoisie and toward the middle peasantry is complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie, but union with the middle peasantry that does not exploit others. This fundamental linein theoryis recognized by all.In practicethis line is not always observed strictly, andlocal workers have not learned to observe it at all. When the proletariat overthrew the bourgeois authority and established its own and set about to create a new society, the question of the middle peasantry came into the foreground. Not a single Socialist in the world has denied the fact that the establishment of communism will proceed differently in those countries where there is large land tenure. This is the most elementary of truths and from this truth it follows that as we approach the tasks of construction our main attention should be concentrated to a certain extent precisely on the middle peasantry. Much will depend on how we have defined our attitude toward the middle peasantry. Theoretically, this question has been decided, but we know from our own experience the difference between the theoretical decision of a question and the practical carrying out of the decision.

... All remember with what difficulty, and after how many months, we passed from workmen’s control to workmen’s administration of industry, and that was development within our class, within the proletarian class, with which we had always had relations. But now we must define our attitude toward a new class, toward a class which the city workmen do not know. We must define our attitude toward a class which does not have a definite steadfast position. The proletariat as a mass is for Socialism; the bourgeoisie is against Socialism; it is easy to define the relations between two such classes. But when we come to such a group as the middle peasantry, then it appears that this is such a kind of class that it hesitates. The middle peasant is part property-owner and part toiler. He does not exploit other representatives of the toilers. For decades he has had to struggle hard to maintain his position and he has felt the exploitation of the landlord-capitalists. But at the same time he is a property-owner.

Therefore our attitude toward this class presents enormous difficulties. On the basis of our experience of more than a year, and of proletariat work in the village for more than a year, and in view of the fact that there has already taken place a class differentiation in the village, we must be most careful not to be hasty, not to theorize without understanding, not to consider ready what has not been worked out. In the resolution which the committee proposes to you, prepared by the agrarian section, which one of the next speakers will read to you, you will find many warnings on this point. From the economic point of view it is clear that we must go to the assistance of the middle peasant. On this point theoretically there is no doubt. But with our level of culture, with our lack of cultural and technical forces which we could offer to the village, and with that helplessness with which we often go to the villages, comrades oftenapply compulsion, which spoils the whole cause. Only yesterday one comrade gave me a small pamphlet entitled,Instructions for Party Activity in the Province of Nizhninovgorod, a publication of the Nizhninovgorod Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviki), and in this pamphlet I read, for example, on page 41, “The decree on the extraordinary revolutionary tax should fall with its whole weight on the shoulders of the village rich peasant speculators, and in general on the middle elements of the peasantry.” Now here one may see that people have indeed “understood,” or is this a misprint? But it is not admissible for such misprints to appear. Or is this the result of hurried, hasty work, which shows how dangerous haste is in a matter like this? Or have we here simply a failure to understand, though this is the very worst supposition which I really do not wish to make with reference to our comrades at Nizhninovgorod? It is quite possible that this is simply an oversight. Such instances occur in practice, as one of the comrades in the commission has related. The peasants surrounded him and each peasant asked: “Please define, am I a middle peasant or not? I have two horses and one cow. I have two cows and one horse,” etc. And so this agitator who was traveling over entire districts had to use a kind of thermometer in order to take each peasant and tell him whether he was a middle peasant or not. But to do this he had to know the whole history and economic life of this particular peasant and his relations to lower and higher groups, and of course we cannot know this with exactness.

Here one must have practical experience and knowledge of local conditions, and we have not these things as yet. We are not at all ashamed to admit this; we must admit this openly. We have never been Utopists and have never imagined that we could build up the communistic society with the pure hands of pure communistswho would be born and educated in a pure communistic society. Such would be children’s fables. We must build communism on the ruins of capitalism, and only that class which has been tempered in the struggle against capitalism can do this. You know very well that the proletariat is not without the faults and weaknesses of the capitalistic society. It struggles for Socialism, and at the same time against its own defects. The best and most progressive portion of the proletariat which has been carrying on a desperate struggle in the cities for decades was able to imitate in the course of this struggle all the culture of city life, and to a certain extent did acquire it. You know that the village even in the most progressive countries was condemned to ignorance. Of course, the cultural level of the village will be raised by us, but that is a matter of years and years. This is what our comrades everywhere forget, and this is what every word that comes to us from the village portrays with particular clearness, when the word comes not from local intellectuals and local officials, but from people who are watching the work in the village from a practical point of view.

When we speak of the tasks in connection with work in the villages, in spite of all difficulties, in spite of the fact that our knowledge has been directed to the immediate suppression of exploiters, we must nevertheless remember and not forget that in the villages with relation to the middle peasantry the task is of a different nature. All conscious workmen, of Petrograd, Ivanovo-Vosnesensk, and Moscow, who have been in the villages, tell us of instances of many misunderstandings, of misunderstandings that could not be solved, it seemed, and of conflicts of the most serious nature, all of which were, however, solved by sensible workmen who did not speak according to the book, but in language which the peoplecould understand, and not like an officer allowing himself to issue orders though unacquainted with village life, but like a comrade explaining the situation and appealing to their feelings as toilers. And by such explanation one attained what could not be attained by thousands who conducted themselves like commanders or superiors.

The resolution which we now present for your attention is drawn up in this spirit. I have tried in this report to emphasize the main principles behind this resolution, and its general political significance. I have tried to show, and I trust I have succeeded, that from the point of view of the interests of the revolution as a whole we have not made any changes. We have not altered our line of action. The White-Guardists and their assistants shout and will continue to shout that we have changed. Let them shout. That does not disturb us. We are developing our aims in an absolutely logical manner. From the task of suppressing the bourgeoisie we must now transfer our attention to the task of building up the life of the middle peasantry. We must live with the middle peasantry in peace. The middle peasantry in a communistic society will be on our side only if we lighten and improve its economic conditions. If we to-morrow could furnish a hundred thousand first-class tractors supplied with gasolene and machinists (you know, of course, that for the moment this is dreaming), then the middle peasant would say, “I am for the Commune.” But in order to do this we must first defeat the international bourgeoisie; we must force them to give us these tractors, or we must increase our own production so that we can ourselves produce them. Only thus is the question stated correctly.

The peasant needs the industries of the cities and cannot live without them and the industries are in our hands. If we approach the situation correctly, then the peasantwill thank us because we will bring him the products from the cities—implements and culture. It will not be exploiters who will bring him these things, not landlords, but his own comrades, workers whom he values very deeply. The middle peasant is very practical and values only actual assistance, quite carelessly thrusting aside all commands and instructions from above.

First help him and then you will secure his confidence. If this matter is handled correctly, if each step taken by our group in the village, in the canton, in the food-supply detachment, or in any organization, is carefully made, is carefully verified from this point of view, then we shall win the confidence of the peasant, and only then shall we be able to move forward. Now we must give him assistance. We must give him advice, and this must not be the order of a commanding officer, but the advice of a comrade. The peasant then will be absolutely for us.

... We learned how to overthrow the bourgeoisie and suppress it and we are very proud of what we have done. We have not yet learned how to regulate our relations with the millions of middle peasants and how to win their confidence. We must say this frankly; but we have understood the task and we have undertaken it and we say to ourselves with full hope, complete knowledge, and entire decision: We shall solve this task, and then Socialism will be absolute, invincible.

At the same time, at a meeting of the Moscow Soviet, Kalinin, a peasant and a Bolshevik, was elected president of the Central Executive Committee. His speech, reported inSevernaya Communa, April 10, 1919, sounded the same note as the speeches of Lenin—conciliation of the middle peasantry:

My election is the symbol of the union of the proletariat and the peasantry. At the present moment when all counter-revolutionary forces are pressing in on us, such a union is particularly valuable. The peasantry was always our natural ally, but in recent times one has heard notes of doubt among the peasants; parties hostile to us are trying to drive a wedge between us and the peasantry.We must convince the middle peasants that the working-class, having in its hands the factories, has not attacked, and will not attack, the small, individual farms of the peasant.This can be done all the more easily because neither the old nor the new program of communists says that we will forcibly centralize the peasant lands and drive them into communes, etc. Quite to the contrary, we say definitely that we will make every effort to readjust and raise the level of the peasant economic enterprises, helping both technically and in other ways, and I shall adhere to this policy in my new post. Here is the policy we shall follow:We shall point out to province, district, and other executive committees that they should make every effort in the course of the collecting of the revolutionary tax,to the end that it should not be a heavy burden on the middle peasant; that they should make self-administration less costly and reduce bureaucratic routine. We shall make every effort so that the local executive committees shall not put obstacles in the way of exchange of articles of agriculture and of home consumption between cantons and peasants—that is, the purchase of farm and household utensils that are sold at fairs. We shall try to eliminate all friction and misunderstandings between provinces and cantons. We shall appeal to the local executive committees not only not to interfere with, but, on the contrary, to support, separate peasant economic enterprises which, because of their special character, have a special value. The mole of historyis working well for us; the hour of world revolution is near, though we must not close our eyes to the fact that at the present moment it is all the more difficult for us to struggle with counter-revolution because of the disorganization of our economic life. Frequently they prophesied our failure, but we still hold on and we shall find new sources of strength and support. Further, each of us must answer the question as to how to adjust production, carry out our enormous tasks, and use our great natural resources. In this field the unions of Petersburg and Moscow are doing very much, because they are the organizing centers from whose examples the provinces will learn. Much has been done in preparing products, but much still has to be done. We in Petersburg fed ourselves for three months, from the end of June to the beginning of September, on products from our Petersburg gardens.

We shall point out to province, district, and other executive committees that they should make every effort in the course of the collecting of the revolutionary tax,to the end that it should not be a heavy burden on the middle peasant; that they should make self-administration less costly and reduce bureaucratic routine. We shall make every effort so that the local executive committees shall not put obstacles in the way of exchange of articles of agriculture and of home consumption between cantons and peasants—that is, the purchase of farm and household utensils that are sold at fairs. We shall try to eliminate all friction and misunderstandings between provinces and cantons. We shall appeal to the local executive committees not only not to interfere with, but, on the contrary, to support, separate peasant economic enterprises which, because of their special character, have a special value. The mole of historyis working well for us; the hour of world revolution is near, though we must not close our eyes to the fact that at the present moment it is all the more difficult for us to struggle with counter-revolution because of the disorganization of our economic life. Frequently they prophesied our failure, but we still hold on and we shall find new sources of strength and support. Further, each of us must answer the question as to how to adjust production, carry out our enormous tasks, and use our great natural resources. In this field the unions of Petersburg and Moscow are doing very much, because they are the organizing centers from whose examples the provinces will learn. Much has been done in preparing products, but much still has to be done. We in Petersburg fed ourselves for three months, from the end of June to the beginning of September, on products from our Petersburg gardens.

The new attitude toward the peasantry revealed in the speeches of Lenin and Kalinin was already manifesting itself in the practical policy of the Soviet power. Greatly alarmed by the spread of famine in the cities, and by the stout resistance of the peasants to the armed requisitioning detachments, which amounted to civil war upon a large scale, they had established in many county towns in the grain-producing provinces central exchanges to which the peasants were urged to bring their grain to be exchanged for the manufactured goods so sorely needed by them. The attitude toward the peasants was more tolerant and friendly; the brutal strife practically disappeared. This did not bring grain to the cities, however, in any considerable quantity. The peasants found that theprice offered for their grain was too low, and the prices demanded for the manufactured goods too high. According toIzvestiaof the Central Executive Committee, No. 443, the fixed price of grain was only 70 per cent. higher than in the month preceding the Bolshevistcoup d’état, whereas the prices on manufactured goods needed by the peasants, including shoes, clothing, household utensils, and small tools, average more than 2,800 per cent. higher. The peasant saw himself once more as a victim of the frightful parasitism of the cities and refused to part with his grain. The same issue ofIzvestiaexplained that the exchange stations “have functioned but feebly and have brought very little relief to the villages”; that the stations soon became storehouses for “bread taken away from the peasants by force at the fixed prices.” When cajoling failed to move the peasants the old agencies of force were resorted to. The grain was forcibly taken and the peasants were paid in paper currency so depreciated as to be almost worthless. Thus the villages were robbed of grain and, at the same time, left destitute of manufactured goods.

At the Congress of the Communist Party, following the speeches of Lenin, from which we have quoted, it was decided that the work of securing grain and other foodstuffs should be turned over to the co-operatives. A few days earlier, according toPravda, March 15, 1919, a decree was issued permitting, in a number of provinces, “free sales of products, including foodstuffs.” This meant that the peasants were free to bring their supplies of grain out in the open and to sell them at the bestprices they could get. The situation was thus somewhat improved, but not everywhere nor for long. Many of the local Soviets refused to adopt the new policy and, as pointed out by theIzvestiaof the Petrograd Soviet, March 24, 1919, continued to make forced requisitions. There was, however, some limitation upon the arrogant and brutal rule of the local Soviets; some restrictions were imposed upon the dictatorship of the Committees of the Poor.

From an article inIzvestia, November 3, 1919, we get some further information concerning the attitude of the peasants toward the Soviet power, and its bearing upon the food question. Only a summary of the article is possible here: “The food conditions are hard, not because Russia, by being cut off from the principal bread-producing districts, does not have sufficient quantities of grain, but principally owing to the class war,which has become permanent and continuous. This class war hinders the work of factories and shops” and, by lessening the production of manufactured goods, “naturally renders the exchange of goods between towns and country difficult,because the peasants consider money of no value, not being able to buy anything with it.” The peasants are not yet “sufficiently far-sighted to be quite convinced of the stability of the Soviet power and the inevitability of Socialism.” The peasants of the producing provinces “do not willingly enough give the grain to the towns, and this greatly drags on the class war,which of course ruins them.” The food conditions in the towns promote “counter-revolution,” creating the hopethat the famine-stricken people in the towns will cease to support the Soviet power. “Thus the peasants by concealing their bread ... render conditions harder, not only for the workmen, but also for themselves.” A statistical table shows that from August, 1918, to September, 1919, in the twelve principal provinces, “99,980,000 poods of bread and fodder grains were delivered to the state, which constitutes 38.1 per cent. of the quantity which was to be received according to the state allocation by provinces. The delivery of bread grain equaled 42.5 per cent. Thus these provinces gave less than one-half of what they could and should have given to the state.”

Such is the self-confessed record of Bolshevism in rural Russia. It is a record of stupid, blundering, oppressive bureaucracy at its best, and at its worst of unspeakable brutality. In dealing with the peasantry, who make up more than 85 per cent. of the population of Russia, Lenin and Trotsky and their followers have shown no greater wisdom of statesmanship, no stronger love of justice, no greater humanity, than the old bureaucracy of czarism. They have not elevated the life of the peasants, but, on the contrary, have checked the healthy development that was already in progress and that promised so well. They have further brutalized the life of the peasants, deepened their old distrust of government, fostered anarchy, and restored the most primitive methods of living and working. All this they have done in the name of Socialism and Progress!

Itis frequently asserted in defense of the Bolsheviki that they resorted to the methods of terrorism only after the bourgeoisie had done so; that, in particular, the attempts to assassinate Lenin and other prominent Bolshevist leaders induced terroristic reprisals. Thus the Red Terror is made to appear as the response of the proletariat to the White Terror of the bourgeoisie. This is not true, unless, indeed, we are to take seriously the alleged “attack” on Lenin on January 16, 1918. A shot was fired, it was said, at Lenin while he was riding in his motor-car. No one was arrested and no attempt was made to discover the person who fired the shot. The general impression in Petrograd was that it was a trick, designed to afford an excuse for the introduction of the Terror. The assassination of Uritzky and the attempted assassination of Lenin, in the summer of 1918, were undoubtedly followed by an increase in the extent and savagery of the Red Terror, but it is equally true that long before that time men and women who had given their lives to the revolutionary struggle against czarism, and who had approved of the terroristic acts against individual officials, were staggered bythe new mass terrorism which began soon after the Bolsheviki seized the reins of power.

On January 16th, following the alleged “attack” upon Lenin above referred to, Zinoviev, Bouch-Bruyevich, and other leaders of the Bolsheviki raised a loud demand for the Terror. On the 18th, the date set for the opening of the Constituent Assembly, the brutal suppression of the demonstration was to be held, but on the 16th the self-constituted Commissaries of the People adopted a resolution to the effect that any attempt “to hold a demonstration in honor of the Constituent Assembly” would be “put down most ruthlessly.” This resolution was adopted, it is said, at the instigation of Bouch-Bruyevich, who under czarism had been a noted defender of religious liberty.

The upholders of the Constituent Assembly proceeded to hold their demonstration. What happened is best told in the report of the event made to the Executive Committee of the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov:

From eleven o’clock in the morning cortèges, composed principally of working-men bearing red flags and placards with inscriptions such as “Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!” “Land and Liberty!” “Long Live the Constituent Assembly!” etc., set out from different parts of the city. The members of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates had agreed to meet at the Field of Mars, where a procession coming from the Petrogradsky quarter was due to arrive. It was soon learned that a part of the participants, coming from the Viborg quarter, had been assailed at the Liteiny bridge by gun-fire from the Red Guards andwere obliged to turn back. But that did not check the other parades. The peasant participants, united with the workers from Petrogradsky quarter, came to the Field of Mars; after having lowered their flags before the tombs of the Revolution of February and sung a funeral hymn to their memory, they installed themselves on Liteinaia Street. New manifestants came to join them and the street was crowded with people. At the corner of Fourstatskaia Street (one of the streets leading to the Taurida Palace) they found themselves all at once assailed by shots from the Red Guards.The Red Guard firedwithout warning, something that never before happened, even in the time of czarism. The police always began by inviting the participators to disperse. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates, the Siberian peasant, Logvinov. An explosive bullet shot away half of his head (a photograph of his body was taken; it was added to the documents which were transferred to the Commission of Inquiry). Several workmen and students and one militant of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, Gorbatchevskaia, were killed at the same time. Other processions of participants on their way to the Taurida Palace were fired into at the same time. On all the streets leading to the palace, groups of Red Guards had been established; they received the order, “Not to spare the cartridges.” On that day at Petrograd there were one hundred killed and wounded.13

The Red Guard firedwithout warning, something that never before happened, even in the time of czarism. The police always began by inviting the participators to disperse. Among the first victims was a member of the Executive Committee of the Soviet of Peasants’ Delegates, the Siberian peasant, Logvinov. An explosive bullet shot away half of his head (a photograph of his body was taken; it was added to the documents which were transferred to the Commission of Inquiry). Several workmen and students and one militant of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, Gorbatchevskaia, were killed at the same time. Other processions of participants on their way to the Taurida Palace were fired into at the same time. On all the streets leading to the palace, groups of Red Guards had been established; they received the order, “Not to spare the cartridges.” On that day at Petrograd there were one hundred killed and wounded.13

13How the Russian Peasants Fought for a Constituent Assembly.A report to the International Socialist Bureau by Inna Rakitnikov, vice-president of the executive committee of the Soviet of Delegates, placing themselves upon the grounds of the defense of the Constituent Assembly. With a letter-preface by the citizen, E. Roubanovitch, member of the International Socialist Bureau. May 30, 1918. Note: This report is printed in full as Appendix II toBolshevism, by John Spargo, pp. 331-384.

What of the brutal murder of the two members of the Provisional Government, F. F. Kokoshkin and A. I. Shingarev? Seized in the middle of December, they were cast into dark, damp, and cold cells in the Peter and Paul Fortress, in the notorious “Trubetskoy Bastion.” On the evening of January 18th they were taken to the Marie Hospital. That night Red Guards and sailors forced their way into the hospital and brutally murdered them both. It is true thatIzvestiacondemned the crime, saying: “Apart from everything else it is bad from a political point of view. This is a fearful blow aimed at the Revolution, at the Soviet authorities.” It is true, also, that Dybenko, Naval Commissary, published a remarkable order, saying: “The honor of the Revolutionary Fleet must not bear the stain of an accusation of revolutionary sailors having murdered their helpless enemies, rendered harmless by imprisonment.I call upon all who took part in the murder ... to appear of their own accord before the Revolutionary Tribunal.”

In the absence of definite proof to the contrary it is perhaps best to regard this outrage as due to the brutal savagery of individuals, rather than as part of a deliberate officially sanctioned policy of terrorism. Yet there is the fact that the sailors and Red Guards, who were armed, had gone straight to the hospital from the office of the Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Sabotage, and Profiteering. That this body, which from the first enlisted the services of many of the spies and secret agents of the old régime, had some connection with the murders was generally believed.

At the end of December, 1917, and in January, 1918, there were wholesale massacres in Sebastopol, Simferopol, Eupatoria, and other places. The well-known radical Russian journalist, Dioneo-Shklovsky, quotes Gorky’s paper, theNovaya Zhizn(New Life), as follows:

The garrison of the Revolutionary Army at Sebastopol has already begun its final struggle against the bourgeoisie. Without much ado they decided simply to massacre all the bourgeoisie. At first they massacred the inhabitants of the two most bourgeois streets in Sebastopol, then the same operation was extended to Simferopol, and then it was the turn of Eupatoria.

In Sebastopol not less than five hundred citizens disappeared during this St. Bartholomew massacre, according to this report, while at Simferopol between two and three hundred officers were shot in the prisons and in the streets. At Yalta many persons—between eighty and one hundred—were thrown into the bay. At Eupatoria the sailors placed the local “bourgeoisie in a barge and sank it.”

Of course Gorky’s paper was at that time very bitter in its criticisms of the brutal methods of the Bolsheviki, and that fact must be taken into account in considering its testimony. Gorky had been very friendly to the Bolsheviki up to thecoup d’état, but revolted against their brutality in the early part of their régime. Subsequently, as is well known, he became reconciled to the régime sufficiently to take office under it. The foregoing accounts, as well as those in the following paragraph,agree in all essential particulars with reports published in the Constitutional-Democratic paper,Nast Viek. This paper, for some inexplicable reason, notwithstanding its vigorous opposition to the Bolsheviki, was permitted to appear, even when all other non-Bolshevist papers were suppressed.

According to theNovaya Zhizn, No. 5, the Soviets in many Russian towns made haste to follow the example of the revolutionary forces at Sebastopol and Simferopol. In the town of Etaritsa the local Red Guard wired to the authorities at the Smolny Institute, Petrograd, for permission to have “a St. Bartholomew’s night” (Yeremeievskaia Notch). In Tropetz, according to the same issue of Gorky’s paper, the commandant presented this report to the Executive Committee of the local Soviet: “The Red Army is quite ready for action. Am waiting for orders to begin a St. Bartholomew’s massacre.” During the latter part of February and the first week of March, 1918, there were wholesale massacres of officers and other bourgeoisie in Kiev, Rostov-on-Don and Novotcherkassk, among other places. The local Socialists-Revolutionists paper,Izvestia, of Novotcherkassk, in its issue of March 6, 1918, gave an account of the killing of a number of officers.

In the beginning of March, 1918, mass executions were held in Rostov-on-Don. Many children were executed by way of reprisal. TheRusskiya Viedomosti(Russian News), in its issue of March 23, 1918, reported that the president of the Municipal Council of Rostov, B. C. Vasiliev, a prominent member of the Social Democratic Party; the mayorof the city; the former chairman of the Rostov-Nakhichevan Council of Working-men’s and Soldiers’ Delegates, P. Melnikov; and M. Smirnov, who was chairman of this Soviet at the time—had handed in a petition to the Bolshevist War-Revolutionary Council, asking that they themselves be shot “instead of the innocent children who are executed without law and justice.”

A group of mothers submitted to the same Bolshevist tribunal the following heartrending petition:

If, according to you, there is need of sacrifices in blood and life in order to establish a socialistic state and to create new ways of life, take our lives, kill us, grown mothers and fathers, but let our children live. They have not yet had a chance to live; they are only growing and developing. Do not destroy young lives. Take our lives and our blood as ransom.Our voices are calling to you, laborers. You have not stained the banner of the Revolution even with the blood of traitors, such as Shceglovitov and Protopopov. Why do you now witness indifferently the bloodshed of our children? Raise your voices in protest. Children do not understand about party strife. Their adherence to one or another party is directed by their eagerness for new impressions, novelty, and the suggestions of elders.We, mothers, have served the country by giving our sons, husbands, and brothers. Pray, take our last possessions, our lives, but spare our children. Call us one after the other for execution, when our children are to be shot! Every one of us would gladly die in order to save the life of her children or that of other children.Citizens, members of the War-Revolutionary Council, listen to the cries of the mothers. We cannot keep silent!

Our voices are calling to you, laborers. You have not stained the banner of the Revolution even with the blood of traitors, such as Shceglovitov and Protopopov. Why do you now witness indifferently the bloodshed of our children? Raise your voices in protest. Children do not understand about party strife. Their adherence to one or another party is directed by their eagerness for new impressions, novelty, and the suggestions of elders.

We, mothers, have served the country by giving our sons, husbands, and brothers. Pray, take our last possessions, our lives, but spare our children. Call us one after the other for execution, when our children are to be shot! Every one of us would gladly die in order to save the life of her children or that of other children.

Citizens, members of the War-Revolutionary Council, listen to the cries of the mothers. We cannot keep silent!

A. Lockerman is a Socialist whose work against czarism brought prison and exile. He was engaged in Socialist work in Rostov-on-Don when the Bolsheviki seized the city in 1918, and during the seventy days they remained its masters. He says:

The callousness with which the Red soldiers carried out executions was amazing. Without wasting words, without questions, even without any irritation, the Red Army men took those who were brought to them from the street, stripped them naked, put them to the wall and shot them. Then the bodies were thrown out on the embankment and stable manure thrown over the pools of blood.14

14A. Lockerman;Les Bolsheviks à l’œuvre, preface par V. Zenzinov, Paris, 1920.

Such barbarity and terrorism went on wherever the Bolsheviki held control, long before the introduction of a system of organized terror directed by the central Soviet Government. Not only did the Bolshevist leaders make no attempt to check the brutal savagery, the murders, lynchings, floggings, and other outrages, but they loudly complained that the local revolutionary authorities were not severe enough. Zinoviev bewailed the too great leniency displayed toward the “counter-revolutionaries and bourgeoisie.” Even Lenin, popularly believed to be less inclined to severity than any of his colleagues, complained, in April, 1918, that “our rule is too mild, quite frequently resembling jam rather than iron.” Trotsky with greater savagery said:

You are perturbed by the mild terror we are applying against our class enemies, but know that a month hencethis terror will take a more terrible form on the model of the terror of the great revolutionaries of France. Not a fortress, but the guillotine, will be for our enemies!

Numerous reports similar to the foregoing could be cited to disprove the claim of the apologists of the Bolsheviki that the Red Terror was introduced in consequence of the assassination of Uritzky and the attempt to assassinate Lenin. The truth is that the tyrannicide, the so-called White Terror, was the result of the Red Terror, not its cause. It is true, of course, that the terrorism was not all on the one side. There were many uprisings of the people, both city workers and peasants, against the Bolshevist usurpers. Defenders of the Bolsheviki cite these uprisings and the brutal savagery with which the Soviet officials were attacked to justify the terroristic policy of the Bolsheviki. The introduction of such a defense surely knocks the bottom out of the claim that the Bolsheviki really represented the great mass of the working-people, and that only the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and the rich peasants were opposed to them. The uprisings were too numerous, too wide-spread, and too formidable to admit of such an interpretation.

M. C. Eroshkin, who was chairman of the Perm Committee of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionists, and represented the Minister of Agriculture in the Perm district under the Provisional Government, during his visit to the United States in 1919 told the present writer some harrowing stories of uprisings against the Soviets which took on a characterof bestial brutality. One of these stories was of an uprising in the Polevsky Works, in Ekaterinburg County, where a mob of peasants, armed with axes, scythes, and sticks, fell upon the members of the Soviet like so many wild animals, tearing fifty of them literally into pieces!

That the government of Russia under the Bolsheviki was to be tyrannical and despotic in the extreme was made evident from the very beginning. By the decree of November 24, 1917, all existing courts of justice were abolished and in their places set up a system of local courts based upon the elective principle. The first judges were to be elected by the Soviets, but henceforth “on the basis of direct democratic vote.” It was provided that the judges were to be “guided in their rulings and verdicts by the laws of the governments which had been overthrown only in so far as those laws are not annulled by the Revolution, and do not contradict the revolutionary conscience and the revolutionary conception of right.” An interpretative note was appended to this clause explaining that all laws which were in contradiction to the decrees of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Government, or the minimum programs of the Social Democratic or Socialists-Revolutionists parties, must be regarded as canceled.

This new “democratic judicial system” was widely hailed as an earnest of the democracy of the new régime and as a constructive experiment of the highest importance. That the decree seemed to manifest a democratic intention is not to be gainsaid: the question of its sincerity cannot be soeasily determined. Of course, there is much in the decree and in the scheme outlined that is extremely crude, while the explanatory note referred to practically had the effect of enacting the platforms of political parties, which had never been formulated in the precise terms of laws, being rather general propositions concerning the exact meaning, of which there was much uncertainty. Crude and clumsy though the scheme might be, however, it had the merit of appearing to be democratic. A careful reading of the decree reveals the fact that several most important classes of offenses were exempted from the jurisdiction of these courts, among them all “political offenses.” Special revolutionary tribunals were to be charged with “the defense of the Revolution”:

For the struggle against the counter-revolutionary forces by means of measures for the defense of the Revolution and its accomplishments, and also for the trial of proceedings against profiteering, speculation, sabotage, and other misdeeds of merchants, manufacturers, officials, and other persons, Workmen’s and Peasants’ Revolutionary Tribunals are established, consisting of a chairman and six members, serving in turn, elected by the provincial or city Soviets of Workmen’s, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies.

Perhaps only those who are familiar with the methods of czarism can appreciate fully the significance of thus associating political offenses, such as counter-revolutionary agitation, with such offenses as illegal speculation and profiteering. Proceedings against profiteers and speculators couldbe relied upon to bring sufficient popularity to these tribunals to enable them to punish political offenders severely, and with a greater degree of impunity than would otherwise be possible. On December 19, 1917, I. Z. Steinberg, People’s Commissar of Justice, issued a decree called “Instructions to the Revolutionary Tribunal,” which caused Shcheglovitov, the most reactionary Minister of Justice the Czar ever had, to cry out: “The Cadets repeatedly charged me in the Duma with turning the tribunal into a weapon of political struggle. How far the Bolsheviki have left me behind!” The following paragraphs from this remarkable document show how admirably the institution of the Revolutionary Tribunal was designed for political oppression:

1. The Revolutionary Tribunal has jurisdiction in cases of persons (a) who organize uprisings against the authority of the Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government, actively oppose the latter or do not obey it, or call upon other persons to oppose or disobey it; (b) who utilize their positions in the state or public service to disturb or hamper the regular progress of work in the institution or enterprise in which they are or have been serving (sabotage, concealing or destroying documents or property, etc.); (c) who stop or reduce production of articles of general use without actual necessity for so doing; (d) who violate the decrees, orders, binding ordinances, and other published acts of the organs of the Workmen’s and Peasants’ Government, if such acts stipulate a trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal for their violation; (e) who, taking advantage of their social or administrative position, misuse the authority given them by the revolutionary people. Crimes against the people committedby means of the press are under the jurisdiction of a specially instituted Revolutionary Tribunal.2. The Revolutionary Tribunal for offenses indicated in Article I imposes upon the guilty the following penalties: (1) fine; (2) deprivation of freedom; (3) exile from the capitals, from particular localities, or from the territory of the Russian Republic; (4) public censure; (5) declaring the offender a public enemy; (6) deprivation of all or some political rights; (7) sequestration or confiscation, partial or general, of property; (8) sentence to compulsory public work.The Revolutionary Tribunal fixes the penalty, being guided by the circumstances of the case and the dictates of the revolutionary conscience.II. The verdicts of the Revolutionary Tribunal are final. In case of violation of the form of procedure established by these instructions, or the discovery of indications of obvious injustice in the verdict, the People’s Commissar of Justice has the right to address to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies a request to order a second and last trial of the case.

2. The Revolutionary Tribunal for offenses indicated in Article I imposes upon the guilty the following penalties: (1) fine; (2) deprivation of freedom; (3) exile from the capitals, from particular localities, or from the territory of the Russian Republic; (4) public censure; (5) declaring the offender a public enemy; (6) deprivation of all or some political rights; (7) sequestration or confiscation, partial or general, of property; (8) sentence to compulsory public work.

The Revolutionary Tribunal fixes the penalty, being guided by the circumstances of the case and the dictates of the revolutionary conscience.

II. The verdicts of the Revolutionary Tribunal are final. In case of violation of the form of procedure established by these instructions, or the discovery of indications of obvious injustice in the verdict, the People’s Commissar of Justice has the right to address to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’, and Peasants’ Deputies a request to order a second and last trial of the case.

Refusal to obey the Soviet Government, active opposition to it, and calling upon other persons “to oppose or disobey it” are thus made punishable offenses. In view of the uproar of protest raised in this country against the deportation of alien agitators and conspirators, especially by the defenders and upholders of the Bolsheviki who have assured us of the beneficent liberality of the Soviet Utopia, it may be well to direct particular attention to the fact that these “instructions” make special and precise provisions for the deportation of politicalundesirables. It is set forth that the Revolutionary Tribunal may inflict, among other penalties, “exile from the capitals, from particular localities,or from the territory of the Russian Republic,” that is, deportation. These penalties, moreover, apply to Russian citizens, not, as in the case of our deportations, to aliens. The various forms of exile thus provided for were common penalties under the old régime.15

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