Part 19 (1/2)
”The more land there is, the greater the appet.i.te for it; hence more quarrels, misunderstandings and fights.
”In Oboyansk County, many villages refused to supply soldiers when the Soviet authorities were mobilizing an army. In their refusal they stated 'in the spring soldiers will be needed at home in the villages,' not to cultivate the land, but to protect it with arms against neighboring peasants.
”In the Provinces of Kaluga, Kursk and Voronezh peasant meetings adopted the following resolution:
”'All grown members of the peasant community have to be home in the spring. Whoever will then not return to the village or voluntarily stay away will be forever expelled from the community.
”'These provisions are made for the purpose of having as great a force as possible in the spring when it comes to dividing the land.' ...
”Some villages in the Nieshnov district, in the Province of Mohilev, have supplied themselves with machine guns. The village of Little Nieshnov, for instance, has decided to order fifteen machine guns and has organized a Red Army in order to be able better to defend a piece of land taken away from the landlord and, as they say, that 'the neighboring peasants should not come to cut our hay right in front of our windows, like last year.' When the neighboring peasants heard of the decision they also procured machine guns. They have formed an army and intend to go to Little Nieshnov to cut the hay on the meadows 'under the windows' of the disputed owners....
”Stubborn fights for meadows and forests are always going on. They often result in skirmishes and murder. There are similar happenings in other counties of the Province, for instance, in Petrov, Balashov and Arkhar.
”In the Province of Simbirsk there is war between the community peasants and shopkeepers. The former have decided to do away with 'Stolypin heirs,' as they call the shopkeepers. The latter, however, have organized and are ready for a stubborn resistance.
Combats have already taken place. The peasants demolish farms, and farmers set fire to towns, villages, thras.h.i.+ng floors, etc.”
Indeed, the results of confiscation and socialization were so bad from the very beginning that no less a personage than Lenine himself, in ”A Letter to American Workingmen,” published by the Socialist Publication Society of Brooklyn, New York, on pages 12 and 13, says:
”Mistakes are being made by our peasants who, at one stroke, in the night from October 25 to October 26 (Russian Calendar), 1917, did away with all private owners.h.i.+p of land, and are now struggling, from month to month, under the greatest difficulties, to correct their own mistakes, trying to solve in practice the most difficult problems of organizing a new social state, fighting, against profiteers to secure the possession of the land, for the workers instead of for the speculator, to carry on agricultural production under a system of communist farming on a large scale.
”Mistakes are being made by our workmen in their revolutionary activity, who, in a few short months, have placed practically all the large factories and workers under state owners.h.i.+p, and are now learning, from day to day, under the greatest difficulties, to conduct the management of entire industries, to reorganize industries already organized, to overcome the deadly resistance of laziness and middle-cla.s.s reaction and egotism.”
The Socialists of the United States and other radical elements in our country, after the World War, began to laud to the skies the Russian Soviets as the most perfect form of government that the world had ever seen. They were held to far surpa.s.s parliaments, congress and other legislative bodies and to be the supreme accomplishments of a democratic form of government. The deputies of the soviets, according to the Bolshevist Const.i.tution, were to be elected by the secret, direct and equal vote of all the working ma.s.ses. Theoretically the soviets were very attractive, but in reality fall far short of the ideal. ”Struggling Russia,” a well-known weekly magazine published in New York City by one of the groups of Russian Socialists, has this to say about the Soviets in its issue of April 5, 1919:
”In fact, there never was either a secret election in Soviet Russia, or one based on equal suffrage. Elections are usually conducted at a given factory or foundry at open meetings, by the raising of hands and always under the knowing eye of the chairman.
The majority of the workers very frequently do not take part in these elections at all. The rights of a minority are never recognized, as proportional representation has been rejected.
”As regards direct elections, it is again a mere phrase. The Central Executive Committee, which is supposed to embody the supreme administrative organ of the country, was actually being elected through a four-grade system. Local Soviets send their representatives to the Provincial Congress, the Provincial Congress is represented by delegates at the All-Russian Congress, and only this last body elects the Central Executive Committee. Often the delegates are not elected by the regular meetings of the Soviets at all, but are sent by the Executive Committees, cleverly handpicked by the Bolsheviki after the system of proportional representation was rejected....
”The exclusion from the Soviets of all who think differently from the Bolsheviki developed gradually. They 'cleansed' the Soviets in Perm and Ekaterinburg, in January 1918; in Ufa, Saratov, Samara, Kazan and Yaroslavl in December, 1917; in Moscow and Petrograd in February, 1918. They were excluding all Socialists-Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, to say nothing of the People's Socialists and members of the Labor Group. Often, when workers demanded new elections to the Soviet (as happened in Petrograd late in December of 1917, and early in January, 1918), and such elections did take place, the Bolsheviki would not permit the newly elected delegates to enter the building of the Soviet and frequently arrested them.
Gradually only Bolsheviki and Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left remained in the Soviets. Soon, however, after the a.s.sa.s.sination in Moscow of Count Mirbach, the German Amba.s.sador, and the attempt at rebellion in Moscow early in June, 1918, by the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Left, the Bolsheviki began to fill up the prisons with the latter just as they did with the Socialists-Revolutionists of the Right and the Mens.h.i.+viki.
”So, practically, there remained only Bolsheviki in the Soviets.
And as there was no difference of opinion among them, regular meetings were soon abandoned altogether and the ostensible 'rule of the working ma.s.ses' thus definitely disappeared. A few persons, often appointed from above (the Bolsheviki often had recourse to bayonets to support the fiction of Soviet rule: in Tumen the Executive Committee of a non-existent Soviet was brought from Ekaterinburg under a convoy of 800 Red Guards), would rule and lord it over the people, tired and weary of the war and a sterile revolution.
”Occasional outbursts of popular wrath serve as indications of the depth of dissatisfaction which is engendered by the Soviets and their offshoots, the Military-Revolutionary Committee. Thus, in the Polevsky works, in Ekaterinburg County, a mob of peasants, armed with axes, scythes and sticks, fell upon the Soviets and beast-like tore into fragments fifty Bolsheviki. In the Neviansk works the insurrection of the workers against the Red Army lasted for three days, until reinforcements from Perm finally subdued this 'counter-revolutionary' revolt. In Okhansk County 2,000 peasants were shot down for demanding the abolition of the Soviets and the re-establishment of the rule of the people.”
In the April 19, 1919, issue of ”Struggling Russia” we are told that ”Vlast Naroda,” in May, 1918, thus described the uprisings against the Soviets:
”In Kleen, a crowd entered by force the building occupied by the Soviets with the intention of bringing the deputies before their own court of justice. The latter fled. The Financial Commisary committed suicide by shooting himself, in order to escape the infuriated crowd.
”In Oriekhovo-Zooyevo, the deputies work in their offices, guarded by a most vigilant military force. Even on the streets they are accompanied by guards armed with rifles and bayonets.
”In Penza, an attempt has been made on the lives of the Soviet members. One of the presiding officers has been wounded. The Soviet building is now surrounded with cannons and machine-guns.
”In Svicherka, where the Bolsheviki had ordered a Bartholomew night, the deputies are hunted like wild animals....
”In Bielo, all members of the Soviets have been murdered.
”In Soligalich, two of the most prominent members of the Soviets have literally been torn to pieces. Two others have been beaten half-dead.