Bolshevism

Bolshevism

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Title: Bolshevism The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
Author: John Spargo

Release Date: August 28, 2005 [eBook #16613]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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BOLSHEVISM***
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BOLSHEVISM
The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy
by
JOHN SPARGO
Author of "Social Democracy Explained" "Socialism, a Summary and
Interpretation of Socialist Principles" "Applied Socialism" etc.
Harper & Brothers Publishers New York and London
1919

* * * * * * *
BOOKS BY
JOHN SPARGO
BOLSHEVISM AMERICANISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
SOCIAL DEMOCRACY EXPLAINED
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
ESTABLISHED 1817
* * * * * * *

CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

II. FROM REVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION
III. THE WAR AND THE PEOPLE
IV. THE SECOND REVOLUTION
V. FROM BOURGEOISIE TO BOLSHEVIKI
VI. THE BOLSHEVIK WAR AGAINST DEMOCRACY
VII. BOLSHEVIST THEORY AND PRACTICE
POSTSCRIPTUM: A PERSONAL STATEMENT
APPENDICES:
I. AN APPEAL TO THE PROLETARIAT BY THE PETROGRAD
WORKMEN'S AND SOLDIERS' COUNCIL
II. HOW THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS FOUGHT FOR A
CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY
III. FORMER SOCIALIST PREMIER OF FINLAND ON
BOLSHEVISM

PREFACE
In the following pages I have tried to make a plain and easily
understandable outline of the origin, history, and meaning of
Bolshevism. I have attempted to provide the average American reader
with a fair and reliable statement of the philosophy, program, and
policies of the Russian Bolsheviki. In order to avoid confusion, and to
keep the matter as simple and clear as possible, I have not tried to deal
with the numerous manifestations of Bolshevism in other lands, but
have confined myself strictly to the Russian example. With some
detail--too much, some of my readers may think!--I have sketched the
historical background in order that the Bolsheviki may be seen in

proper perspective and fairly judged in connection with the whole
revolutionary movement in Russia.
Whoever turns to these pages in the expectation of finding a sensational
"exposure" of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki will be disappointed. It
has been my aim to make a deliberate and scientific study, not an
_ex-parte_ indictment. A great many lurid and sensational stories about
the Bolsheviki have been published, the net result of which is to make
the leaders of this phase of the great universal war of the classes appear
as brutal and depraved monsters of iniquity. There is not a crime
known to mankind, apparently, of which they have not been loudly
declared to be guilty. My long experience in the Socialist movement
has furnished me with too much understanding of the manner and
extent to which working-class movements are abused and slandered to
permit me to accept these stories as gospel truth. That experience has
forced me to assume that most of the terrible stories told about the
Bolsheviki are either untrue and without any foundation in fact or
greatly exaggerated. The "rumor factories" in Geneva, Stockholm,
Copenhagen, The Hague, and other European capitals, which were so
busy during the war fabricating and exploiting for profit stories of
massacres, victories, assassinations, revolutions, peace treaties, and
other momentous events, which subsequent information proved never
to have happened at all, seem now to have turned their attention to the
Bolsheviki.
However little of a cynic one may be, it is almost impossible to refrain
from wondering at the fact that so many writers and journals that in the
quite recent past maintained absolute silence when the czar and his
minions were committing their infamous outrages against the
working-people and their leaders, and that were never known to protest
against the many crimes committed by our own industrial czars against
our working-people and their leaders--that these writers and journals
are now so violently denouncing the Bolsheviki for alleged
inhumanities. When the same journals that defended or apologized for
the brutal lynchings of I.W.W. agitators and the savage assaults
committed upon other peaceful citizens whose only crime was
exercising their lawful and moral right to organize and strike for better

wages, denounce the Bolsheviki for their "brutality" and their
"lawlessness" and cry for vengeance upon them, honest and sincere
men become bitter and scornful.
I am not a Bolshevik or a defender of the Bolsheviki. As a Social
Democrat and Internationalist of many years' standing--and therefore
loyal to America and American ideals--I am absolutely opposed to