Bolshevism | Page 2

the
principles and practices of the Bolsheviki, which, from the very first, I
have regarded and denounced as an inverted form of Czarism. It is
quite clear to my mind, however, that there can be no good result from
wild abuse or from misrepresentation of facts and motives. I am
convinced that the stupid campaign of calumny which has been waged
against the Bolsheviki has won for them the sympathy of many
intelligent Americans who love fairness and hate injustice. In this way
lying and abuse react against those who indulge in them.
In this study I have completely ignored the flood of newspaper stories
of Bolshevist "outrages" and "crimes" which has poured forth during
the past year. I have ignored, too, the remarkable collection of
documents edited and annotated by Mr. Sisson and published by the
United States Committee on Public Information. I do not doubt that
there is much that is true in that collection of documents--indeed, there
is some corroboration of some of them--but the means of determining
what is true and what false are not yet available to the student. So much
doubt and suspicion is reasonably and properly attached to some of the
documents that the value of the whole mass is greatly impaired. To rely
upon these documents to make a case against the Bolsheviki, unless
and until they have been more fully investigated and authenticated than
they appear to have been as yet, and corroborated, would be like
relying upon the testimony of an unreliable witness to convict a man
serious crime.
That the Bolsheviki have been guilty of many crimes is certain. Ample
evidence of that fact will be found in the following pages. They have
committed many crimes against men and women whose splendid
service to the Russian revolutionary movement serves only to
accentuate the crimes in question. But their worst crimes have been

against political and social democracy, which they have shamefully
betrayed and opposed with as little scruple, and as much brutal injustice,
as was ever manifested by the Romanovs. This is a terrible charge, I
know, but I believe that the most sympathetic toward the Bolsheviki
among my readers will, if they are candid, admit that it is amply
sustained by the evidence.
Concerning that evidence it is perhaps necessary to say that I have
confined myself to the following: official documents issued by the
Bolshevist government; the writings and addresses of accredited
Bolshevik leaders and officials--in the form in which they have been
published by the Bolsheviki themselves; the declarations of Russian
Socialist organizations of long and honorable standing in the
international Socialist movement; the statements of equally well-known
and trusted Russian Socialists, and of responsible Russian Socialist
journals.
While I have indicated the sources of most of the evidence against the
Bolsheviki, either in the text itself or in the foot-notes and references, I
have not thought it advisable to burden my pages with such foot-notes
and references concerning matters of general knowledge. To have
given references and authorities for all the facts summarized in the
historical outlines, for example, would have been simply a show of
pedantry and served only to frighten away the ordinary reader.
I have been deeply indebted to the works of other writers, among which
I may mention the following: Peter Kropotkin's Memoirs of a
Revolutionist and _Ideals and Realities of Russian Literature_; S.
Stepniak's _Underground Russia_; Leo Deutsch's _Sixteen Years in
Siberia_; Alexander Ular's _Russia from Within_; William English
Walling's _Russia's Message_; Zinovy N. Preev's _The Russian
Riddle_; Maxim Litvinov's _The Bolshevik Revolution: Its Rise and
Meaning_; M.J. Olgin's _The Soul of the Russian Revolution_; A.J.
Sack's _The Birth of Russian Democracy_; E.A. Ross's _Russia in
Upheaval_; Isaac Don Levine's _The Russian Revolution_; Bessie
Beatty's _The Red Heart of Russia_; Louise Bryant's _Six Red Months
in Russia_; Leon Trotzky's Our Revolution and _The Bolsheviki and

World Peace_; Gabriel Domergue's _La Russe Rouge_; Nikolai
Lenine's _The Soviets at Work_; Zinoviev and Lenine's _Sozialismus
und Krieg_; Emile Vandervelde's _Trois Aspects de la Révolution
Russe_; P.G. Chesnais's _La Révolution et la Paix_ and Les Bolsheviks.
I have also freely availed myself of the many admirable translations of
official Bolshevist documents published in The Class Struggle, of New
York, a pro-Bolshevist magazine; the collection of documents
published by The Nation, of New York, a journal exceedingly generous
in its treatment of Bolshevism and the Bolsheviki; and of the mass of
material published in its excellent "International Notes" by Justice, of
London, the oldest Socialist newspaper in the English language, I
believe, and one of the most ably edited.
Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made of friendly service rendered
and valuable information given by Mr. Alexander Kerensky, former
Premier of Russia; Mr. Henry L. Slobodin, of New York; Mr. A.J. Sack,
Director of the Russian Information Bureau in